Tesis doctoral: S ÁNCHEZ, A. R egister and style variation in speakers of Spanish as a her itage and as a second language

[Carlos Subirats]

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Tesis doctoral:
SÁNCHEZ MUÑOZ, Ana. 2007. Register and style variation in speakers of
Spanish as a heritage and as a second language. Department of
Linguistics, University of Southern California (Los Angeles, CA), USA
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1. Autora: SÁNCHEZ MUÑOZ, Ana

2. Título de la tesis:
Register and style variation in speakers of Spanish as a heritage and
as a second language
    2.1 Número de páginas:172
    2.2 Palabras clave: Registro, estilo, variación, español,
hablantes de herencia.

3. Fecha de lectura o defensa: 31 de enero de 2007

4. Departamento, centro o laboratorio en el que se ha desarrollado:
Department of Linguistics
University of Southern California (Los Angeles, California), USA

5. Directora: Prof. Carmen Silva-Corvalán

6. Proyecto o línea de investigación en el que se incluye: Sociolingüística

7. Resumen e índice:

One  of the fundamental principles of sociolinguistics is that
language is  not homogeneous and that no single person speaks in the
same way all  the time. Numerous studies have provided evidence of
linguistic variation  across situations of use in English (e.g. Bell
1984; Biber 1988; Biber  and Finegan 1994). However, under special
conditions when a language  is restricted to very familiar situations,
speakers might not show register  variation (Dressler 1982). For most
heritage speakers of Spanish in  the U.S., English is the dominant
language while Spanish is largely  restricted to home and family
interactions. This dissertation explores  the hypothesis of variation
across registers in Spanish as a heritage  language. Additionally, it
examines speakers of Spanish as a second  language since Spanish is
also their non-dominant language.

For the purpose of studying register and style variation, this
dissertation  focuses on several linguistic features that are expected
to vary in  relation to the type of register: discourse particles,
contractions,  and various lexical choices. The data analyzed come
from recorded spoken  samples produced in Spanish by heritage and
second language speakers  and collected in three situations of use:
conversations, interviews,  and presentations, ranging on a scale from
less to more formal.

The results indicate that both heritage and second language speakers
show  linguistic variation in their Spanish across registers. The
results  also reveal some quantitative as well as qualitative
differences between  the production of heritage and second language
speakers across registers.  These contrasts are the result of the
different input to which the speakers  have been exposed to during
acquisition.

This dissertation contributes to further our understanding of
bilingualism  by examining Spanish as a heritage and as a second
language across different  registers, which has not been previously
investigated. It provides evidence  of variation in a relatively small
range of registers in the speakers'  non-dominant language. This is an
important finding since it shows that  even when the use of the
language is largely restricted to a particular  domain (home and
family interactions for heritage speakers and classroom  interactions
for second language learners), we can still find register  variation.


ÍNDICE

Chapter 1. Register variation in heritage and second languages
1.	Introduction
	1.1. Objectives								
	1.2. Background							  	
	1.3. Working assumptions: Register and style				
2.	Research questions			                     	  			
3.	Literature review and conceptual framework					
4.	Linguistic features correlated with register variation in heritage languages	
	4.1. Discourse particles							
	4.2. Contractions								
	4.3. Lexical choices								
5. 	Methodology									
	5.1. Sampling methods and characteristics of the speakers		
	5.2. Situations of data collection						
	5.3. Data collection procedures and materials		
	5.4. Statistical analysis							

Chapter 2. Discourse particles and contractions					
1.	Introduction									
2.	Discourse particles								
	2.1. Como ('as'/'like')								
	2.2. So, así que, entonces							
	2.3. Punctors								
3.	Contractions							
	3.1. Pues ('so'/'well') and para ('for'/'so that')			
	3.2. Estar ('to be')							
4.	Hypotheses								
5.	Results and discussion					
	5.1. Como								
	5.2. So, así que, and entonces					
	5.3. Punctors								
	5.4. Contractions							
	5.5. Discussion							
6.	Conclusions								

Chapter 3. Lexical Choices							
1.	Introduction								
2.	Lexical features analyzed
	2.1. Informal, formal, and technical vocabulary				
	2.2. Lexical transfer							
	2.3. Attributive adjectives				
	2.4. Type/token ratio							
3.	Hypotheses	                                					
4.	Results	 and discussion	
	4.1. Informal, formal, and technical vocabulary			
	4.2. Lexical transfer							
	4.3. Attributive adjectives						
	4.4. Type/token ratio							
	4.5. Discussion							
5.	Conclusions			 					

Chapter 4. Conclusions		
1.	Summary of the findings						
	1.1. Linguistic features in the speech of HLS across registers	
	1.2. Comparison between HLS and SLS				
2.	Pedagogical implications						
3.	Direction of future research and concluding remarks			

Bibliography									

Appendices									
Appendix A. Speaker information and coding				
Appendix B. HLS Biographical and language background questionnaire
Appendix C. SLS Biographical and language background questionnaire
Appendix D. Spanish courses taken by HLS and SLS in college	


8. Correo-e de la autora: ana [punto] munoz [arroba] csun [punto] edu

9. Cómo obtener la tesis:
ProQuest (http://www.proquest.com/brand/umi.shtml) o contactando con la autora:
ana [punto] munoz [arroba] csun [punto] edu

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PDF Version of Chomsky's Original 1955-56 Thesis

Chomsky's thesis draft (1955-56), the one he was preparing for publication as "The Logical Structure of Linguistic Theory" is freely downloadable (436MB):
http://alpha-leonis.lids.mit.edu/chomsky/

The full document contains chapters that were left out of the LSLT
published version, e.g., an information-theoretic method to construct
linguistic categories, that Chomsky developed in conjunction with Peter Elias.
Información de Prof. Bob Berwick, distribuida por Linguist List
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