Spanish in the World: varieties, histories and cultures

Elective Course

The main objective of the course is to offer an introduction to Spanish Dialectology as well as to develop students’ communicative competence in a horizontal way, that is, by linking theory and practice. The course intends to make students familiar with the main dialect areas of the Spanish-speaking world, their history and coexistence with other languages of the world. The course will present basic concepts related to the fields of Linguistics and Dialectology, and will also raise awareness of the current widespread extension of the Spanish language and its prospects. There will be a special emphasis on the characteristics of each geodialect at the levels of phonology, lexis and grammar, as well as on the Spanish spoken in other areas such as Philippines, Türkiye, Equatorial Guinea or the U.S., and on the different phenomena related tothem.

The methodology of this course is a blendedlearning one based on flipped-classroom work and weekly assessments aimed to consolidate knowledge.  Students will need to access Moodle on a weekly basis, read the corresponding theory document and do a quiz in preparation for the lecture. In class students will have the opportunity to discuss the contents of the lesson, previously prepared at home, and will be exposed to language excerpts taken from real printed and audiovisual materials which will help to illustrate the contents previously examined at home and further discussed in class. Different language activities will be conducted in class for students to put into practice what they have learned and to promote “learning by doing”, in some cases with the help of native speakers who will be attending the lectures in order to provide students with real language exposure. After class, students will also have to do the language practice exercises about the language variety that was presented in order to consolidate their knowledge.