SPAN 3202
Debating Cultures: How Spanish Works
This course offers an introduction to the study of the Spanish language as a science. It focuses on the main linguistic subsystems: the sound system (phonetics and phonology), the formation and use of words (morphology), and the formation and structure of sentences (syntax). When working with each linguistic subsystem, students are provided with opportunities to reflect on and improve their own abilities in Spanish, such as with regard to how mood (indicative versus subjunctive) and aspect (preterit versus imperfect) work in the Spanish verbal system. Similarities and differences between Spanish and other languages, such as English, are highlighted. The course also provides students with an introduction to the history of Spanish in its evolution from Latin as one of many Romance languages (a diachronic view) and an exploration of various regional varieties of Spanish today (a synchronic view). The goals of the course include understanding linguistics and Hispanic linguistics as cognitive sciences; understanding language acquisition and use as neural processes; disentangling linguistic rules and linguistic variation from pedagogical rules and stigmatization; and applying one's knowledge of linguistics in general and Hispanic linguistics in particular to practical issues and challenges. This course will have a strong, mandatory and graded oral communications component, and it is taught in Spanish. Prior or concurrent enrollment in Spanish 303 is required. Students who have taken more than two Spanish culture or literature classes are not allowed in this course and must proceed to a Researching Cultures class.
Instructors
Reviews
6-8 hrs/week
The class was not terrible. I do recommend a decently strong Spanish background as the class talks about linguistics which is already a tough subject in Spanish...
6/4/2024
2 or less hrs/week
I struggled in this class without any linguistics knowledge. There probably should be a pre requisite! Lectures were very very dry and tests were HARD.
5/22/2024
Fantastic professor. She explains concepts clearly, notifies about upcoming assignments, and grades fairly. SHe is a very pleasant professor despite the class being a lot of new and challenging material. Prof. Doran makes it seem less stressful.
10/11/2023
Prof is friendly and I think she truly cares about the subject but lectures are very dry and confusing. The textbook isn't much help either. Tests were quite hard and often left most of the class feeling pretty upset. Having previous exposure to linguistics would be very helpful.
1/5/2023
Coming from a well-prepared Spanish background, the class was pretty much what I expected it to be. It is a very reading-intensive course and although the material wasn't the most interesting to me, Profa. Doran is a very nice person who is a relatively lenient grader. Although she rarely gives 95+ on big assignments, she is not as strict as others
12/23/2022
I highly disagree with a lot of the reviews for Prof. Doran. I thought she was lovely. I thought her course was interesting, challenging, and fair. Yes, you had to go to class. Yes, you had to understand the material and demonstrate that. We had several take home exams, ungraded homework assignments, assigned readings, and a few group projects.
8/16/2022
Although Professor Doran is very kind and clearly cares about her students, her class is ridiculously difficult and the tests/projects take an ungodly amount of time and effort to complete. The material is very confusing and tested very in-depth on. She is extremely nice, but I would never recommend taking this difficult of a Spanish class.
5/3/2022