Spanish II: Linguistic Variation in the Spanish Speaking World

The goal of the course is for the students to develop both basic knowledge and understanding of Spanish linguistics including the areas of language development from a diachronic perspective and dialectology as well as an awareness in realtion to their own learning.
Upon completion of the course, students shall be able to:

• demonstrate basic knowledge of the historical development of the Spanish language towards a modern standard language
• demonstrate an understanding of the Spanish-speaking world‘s dialectal variation based on an analysis of grammatical, phonetic and semantic differences
• demonstrate basic knowledge of the development of the Spanish lexicon through its contact with other languages and cultures.

The course includes the study of basic concepts and terminology in modern linguistics and is intended to convey a better understanding of historical development of the Spanish language, language functions and dialectal variants. Spanish is addressed from its historical development to a standard language, which includes discussions about the importance of language contact and cultural influence. The emphasis of the course is on Spanish dialectology through the study of grammatical, phonetical and semantical differences between the major dialect regions of the Spanish-speaking world. Furthermore, the Spanish dialectal variants are discussed based on the importance they have in different socio-cultural contexts in Spain and Spanish America.

The Swedish grades U–VG.