16.871, Review: Applied Ling/Spanish: Pountain (2004)

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LINGUIST List: Vol-16-871. Tue Mar 22 2005. ISSN: 1068 - 4875.

Subject: 16.871, Review: Applied Ling/Spanish: Pountain (2004)

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1)
Date: 21-Mar-2005
From: Lynn Pearson < pearson at bgnet.bgsu.edu >
Subject: Exploring the Spanish Language 

	
-------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- 
Date: Tue, 22 Mar 2005 21:35:21
From: Lynn Pearson < pearson at bgnet.bgsu.edu >
Subject: Exploring the Spanish Language 
 

AUTHOR: Pountain, Christopher
TITLE: Exploring the Spanish Language
SERIES: A Hodder Arnold Publication 
PUBLISHER: Oxford University Press
YEAR: 2004
Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/15/15-1470.html


Lynn Pearson, Department of Romance Languages, Bowling Green State 
University

DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK

This book provides an introduction to the Spanish language with a 
description of its linguistic structures and geographical and social 
varieties. The author assumes no previous knowledge of linguistics on the 
part of the reader and focuses on data from Spanish rather than linguistic 
theories. The book can function as both a reference work and as a 
textbook, especially for English-speaking learners of Spanish. The 
chapters contain exercises for further analysis of various structures and 
concepts by the readers.  

CHAPTER ONE -- Introduction

This chapter presents the concept of description as a way of looking 
objectively at different varieties of a language. Description is compared 
with prescription and the author provides examples of prescriptive 
approaches to language in the Spanish-speaking world. Pedagogical rules 
are discussed as both useful for learners and limited in their descriptive 
power. The standard and prestige norms are detailed by citing historical 
and geographical factors in the evolution of Spanish and the role of the 
Real Academia Española in providing written norms of usage. Types of 
variation (e.g., geographic, social, temporal) are described. The chapter 
also gives an overview of book contents.

CHAPTER TWO -- The sounds of Spanish

This chapter presents topics in Spanish phonology. It begins with an 
overview of the descriptions and symbols used to represent sounds (e.g., 
International Phonetic Alphabet and Revista de filología española). 
Variation of pronunciation, due to context (e.g., neutralization) or 
dialect (e.g., ceceo and seseo), is discussed. The relationship between 
orthography and pronunciation is explained using examples from the 
historical evolution of Spanish and English and text- messaging. Spanish 
syllable structure is detailed to illustrate concepts such as hiatus and 
sinalefa. The chapter covers the suprasegmental features of Spanish (word 
stress, intonation patterns) with reference to English and Spanish 
dialects.

CHAPTER THREE -- Spanish words and their structure

In this chapter, the morphology of Spanish is outlined. Spanish is a 
language with numerous inflections on nouns, adjectives and verbs. The 
author demonstrates the limitations of morphological analysis based on a 
one-to-one relationship between morphological units and meaning with 
examples of subjunctive verb forms, adjectives derived from nouns, and 
prefixes. Other patterns of derivational morphology are illustrated 
including noun-adjective and noun-verb relations and affective suffixes. 
Semantic features of words are discussed with reference to strategies used 
in dictionary definitions (e.g., synonyms, antonyms, hyponyms) and idioms. 
The concept of semantic field is explained with words for family 
relations, "thief" and others in Spanish and English.

CHAPTER FOUR -- Spanish sentences and their structure

In this chapter, the syntactic features of Spanish are described with a 
focus on few key issues. A definition of a "sentence" is presented along 
with explanations of the "pro-drop" parameter of Spanish, impersonal 
verbs, and sentences in spoken language. The possible constituents of 
sentences are discussed within the context the valency of verbs (e.g., 
transitivity and intransitivity) and the role of syntactic and semantic 
features in determining the dependent elements of verbs. Other sentence 
types are outlined (e.g., interrogative, imperative, complex). The author 
discusses word order patterns, complementation, adjectival clauses, 
constructions with infinitives and gerunds. 

CHAPTER FIVE -- Themes in form and meaning: the 'genius' of Spanish

This chapter examines several grammatical features of modern Spanish, 
which demonstrate "the tension ... between form and meaning" (p. 95). 
These features represent the phenomenon of "genius" of the language, which 
exploits "particular grammatical processes at the expense of others, 
tending to always lose sight of any explicit functional value that the 
process may have had in the first instance" (Sapir 1921: 60). Among the 
topics covered are gender of nouns, the 'personal a', modality, the 
multiple functions of reflexives, and copula verbs for "be" and "become" 
(ser, estar, volverse, hacerse, etc.). 

CHAPTER SIX -- Regional and social variation

In this chapter, geographical and sociolinguistic variation in the spoken 
language is described. The chapter begins with a discussion of the 
standardization in the history of Spanish (e.g., the alfonsí "castellano 
drecho") and recent efforts to standardize Catalan, Galician, and Basque. 
An overview of the field of dialect geography is provided (e.g., 
linguistic atlases, isoglosses, etc.). The regional features of Spanish 
dialects (e.g., second person pronouns, seseo vs. ceceo, lleísmo vs. 
yeísmo, etc.) in Spain and Latin America are presented. The author 
includes mention of internal and external factors affecting the evolution 
of phonological, morphological and syntactic features of the dialects. 
Sociolinguistic variation is covered in relation to social class, age, 
sex, and formality level.

CHAPTER SEVEN -- Register

Register is another type of linguistic variation "according to the 
situation in which language is used, or the purpose for which it is used" 
(p. 168). The chapter covers register variation in spoken and written 
language. Many examples are presented from literary works, sociolinguistic 
data, media sources, legal documents, and advertising language to show the 
features of different registers. Various linguistic features are also 
discussed in relation to register (e.g., second person pronouns, 
imperatives, discourse markers, jargon, slang, etc.).

CHAPTER EIGHT -- Style

Style is composed of linguistic features of texts, which are employed for 
particular effects. The prescriptive notion of "good style" is described 
as one of a number of possible styles in texts. Rhetorical style is 
discussed with relation to figures of speech. Each figure of speech is 
presented with the English and Spanish terminology, a definition, and an 
example from literary texts or other sources. Literary style is 
illustrated further with "deviations" such as using present tense in 
narratives. Concordances (distribution of words in a texts, length of 
words, number of different words used and the contexts in which they 
occur) are analyzed in two literary texts (Yerma and El coronel no tiene 
quien le escriba). The author discusses the problems of preparing 
electronic texts for computer analysis.    

CHAPTER NINE -- Spanish or not?

This chapter describes some varieties of Spanish, which have evolved in 
contexts removed from the standard varieties in Spain and Latin America. 
The languages covered in the chapter include Judeo-Spanish, isleño (a 
vestigial variety spoken in Louisiana, USA), Afro-Hispanic (e.g., bozal, 
Spanish Creoles (Papiamentu, Palenquero, Chabacano), and varieties with 
code-switching (US Spanish varieties, Fronteiriço in Uruguay). For each 
variety, the author provides historical background and a description of 
its linguistic features.

CHAPTER TEN -- Towards the future

The final chapter examines the future of Spanish through linguistic 
forecasting about internal and external developments in the language. 
Internal forecasting is based on observations of the synchronic structure 
and variation and on the knowledge of linguistic evolution. For example, 
if the aspiration or elision of syllable final /s/ became a standard 
feature, it may lead to a restructuring of the phonemic inventory of 
Spanish and changes in orthography. External forecasting concerns the 
numbers of speakers of a language and the international status of the 
language. This information is relevant for language planning for economic 
and academic purposes. The issue of the linguistic unity of Spanish (e.g., 
acceptance of a written norm and mutual intelligibility between educated 
speakers) is discussed. The author addresses the influence of English in 
Spanish varieties citing internal and external factors for borrowing.  

CRITICAL EVALUATION

Pountain's book is an excellent introduction to the Spanish language. The 
text is very accessible to readers with clear explanations and linguistic 
terminology highlighted in boldface and listed in the index. In addition, 
there are numerous examples from diverse sources (e.g., literary works, 
linguistics studies, and the Internet), which illustrate the features of 
Spanish varieties and types of linguistic variation. The descriptions 
contain information about the historical development of Spanish as well as 
the current state of the language. The book also emphasizes the objective 
of linguistic study to describe language varieties without value judgments 
or prescriptivism. Spanish is compared to English throughout the book 
making the text helpful for English-speaking learners of Spanish to 
understand the areas of contrast between the two languages. The book would 
be a very appropriate choice as a textbook for an introductory course in 
Hispanic Linguistics at the undergraduate or graduate level. The exercises 
at the end of each chapter offer areas of further investigation for 
readers, who can apply the concepts to do linguistic analysis as part of a 
class or for independent study. Sample answers to the exercises are 
provided. Individual chapters may also be useful for courses in 
literature, sociolinguistics, teacher education, and other fields. The 
book will be a valuable resource for both students and scholars. 

REFERENCES

Sapir, Edward (1921) Language: An introduction to the study of speech. 
Hart-Davis. 

ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Lynn Pearson is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Undergraduate 
Advisor for Spanish Education majors at Bowling Green State University in 
Ohio. She teaches courses in second language acquisition, history of 
Spanish, and dialectology. Her research interests include interlanguage 
pragmatics, teacher education, and using technology in language and 
linguistics courses.





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