News & Events

The Spanish Department has scheduled an important meeting for all Spanish majors, prospective majors and students who plan to study abroad. 

When:  4:00 P.M. – Thursday, October 17, 2019

Where: BARRETT HALL LIBRARY

Faculty members will be available to answer questions about:

1. Spanish major requirements
2. Study abroad, approved programs, courses that count toward major requirements, etc.
3. Comprehensive Exam, Foundational Texts and strategies for answering exam questions, etc.

Please plan to attend!!  Refreshments will be served.

Hubert Ford '20 created this detailed Spanish Department newsletter sharing our Senior Majors, our Juniors studying abroad as well as other department happenings.

Spanish Professor Jeannette Sánchez-Naranjo, Ph.D. recently published two articles.  Check them out below!

In Foreign Language Annals

Peer review and training: Pathways to quality and value in second language writing

This study examined the impact of teaching students to provide and incorporate peers’ feedback on their partners’ second language (L2) writing. Sixty‐five participants enrolled in Spanish composition classes were assigned to one of three conditions: trained peer review (n = 21), untrained peer review (n =21), and a non‐peer‐review comparison group (n = 23). Each group produced narrative and expository texts that were analyzed and scored by three raters to determine the extent to which students’ text quality improved from one version to the next as well as throughout the semester, and what type of feedback L2 learners incorporated into their revisions. Results showed that participation in systematic training involving discussion and interaction with their peers allowed L2 learners to provide significantly more comments that contributed to substantial gains in final text versions. By receiving feedback from a trained L2 peer and incorporating a higher number of peers’ comments into their text revisions, L2 learners were able to effectively use feedback that led to better text quality.


In Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics

La producción de significado y la construcción de la identidad social en el uso humorístico del lenguaje

This article examines interactional spontaneous humorous remarks (ocurrencias) in Spanish. 680 hours of natural conversational data from a group of Colombian graduate students were collected and transcribed using observational methods from an ethnographic approach. By examining conversational joking among participants, this study provides a detailed description of humorous remarks forms and functions within social interactions in informal contexts. Results show that participants use humorous remarks to both establish their own hierarchical position in the group, as well as regulate their relationships and the interaction itself. It is argued that beyond humor, these remarks play a role as discourse markers since they guide the process of meaning and identity construction by the subjects.

In response to a surge in anti-Semitic incidents in New England, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker revived a state task force to address hate crimes. Spanish Major Deborah “D.J.” Williams ’20 was tapped to join the fight.

Read the article here!

During the Fall of 2018, eight students mounted their own digital exhibitions for the “Art as Protest in Spain and Latin America” class. As the curator, each student chose and researched five objects centered on an individual theme, writing descriptions for each work and an introduction to their exhibit. The result is an artistic tour through the most important and controversial matters affecting the Spanish-speaking world today.

We invite you to explore these diverse and striking exhibitions. You can begin with the “Exhibit Pages,” where each student has contributed the introduction to their exhibit and links to the five objects with their descriptions.

We hope that these exhibitions allow the viewer to reflect on how art can be an effective form of protest and resistance throughout the Spanish-speaking world. — Professor Sara J. Brenneis