Course syllabus

SPANISH 341/741: Spanish Sound Structure

Semester 1, 2018 

Points:
SPANISH 341 is worth 15 points, while SPANISH 741 is worth 30 points.

Prerequisites:
15 points from SPANISH 201, 278, 319, 321, 377, 378

Convenor:
Dr Eduardo Piñeros, Arts 2 Room 404A, c-e.pineros@auckland.ac.nz, +64 9 373 7599 ext. 87126

Office hours:
Wednesday, 11am-12pm, or by appointment.

Course Description and Objectives:
SPANISH 341/741 provides a solid grounding in Spanish phonetics and phonology while helping students develop a native-like oral production. Foundational linguistic concepts are applied to deconstruct the Spanish sound system and numerous oral-practice exercises are conducted in class to help students minimize transfer of English pronunciation habits. Phonetic transcription is employed to highlight sound changes and demonstrate the wide range of pronunciation variants that exist across the Spanish-speaking world. By the end of this course students will have improved the quality of their oral production and gained a good understanding of Spanish sound patterns.

Class times and rooms:
Monday, 12-2pm, 801 Room 316 (Lecture)
Friday, 12-1pm, 104 Room G07 (341 tutorial)
Friday, 2-3pm, 303 Room B07 (741 exclusive tutorial)

Workload:
SPANISH 341 has 3 contact hours per week (2 lectures and 1 tutorial). SPANISH 741 has 4 contact hours per week (2 lectures and 2 tutorials). Attendance at all lectures and tutorials is essential in order to understand technical linguistic concepts and gain oral practice. Each lesson builds on the content of previous lessons; thus, it is crucial that you review regularly and do regular oral practice at home. All in all, with classes and personal study, you need to spend 10 hours per week on Spanish 341 and 20 hours per week on Spanish 741.

Main weekly topics:
Week 1 - Introduction, Dialectal variation
Week 2 - Articulatory and acoustic notions, Sonority
Week 3 - Sillabification, Stress
Week 4 - Stress, Intonation, Phonetic transcription
Week 5 - Manners of articulation
Week 6 - Places of articulation, Phonation
Week 7 - Syllabic and non-syllabic vowels
Week 8 - Vowel sequences, Voiceless stops
Week 9 - Voiced stops, Fricatives
Week 10 - Affricates, Nasals, Laterals
Week 11 - Rhotics, Semiconsonants
Week 12 - Oral presentations

Course calendar:

Resources:
Basic readings
Piñeros, Carlos-Eduardo. Estructura de los sonidos del español. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson, Prentice Hall, 2008, 414 pp.
Quilis, Antonio y Joseph A. Fernández. Curso de fonética y fonología españolas. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. 1996.

Further readings on reserve at the Library
Canfield, D. Lincoln. Spanish Pronunciation in the Americas. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1981.
Lipski, John. El español de América. Madrid: Cátedra. 2007.
Palacios Alcaine, Azucena. El español en América. Barcelona: Ariel. 2008.
Zamora Vicente, Alonso. Dialectología española. Madrid: Gredos. 1978.

Spanish 341/741 website
The website for this course is a rich repository of electronic resources that will help you study and practice what you learn in class. To access it, go to Canvas (https://canvas.auckland.ac.nz) and log in using your UPI and Netaccount password.

Course Assessment: