What is the probability that Spanish, as a vernacular language, will survive in the U.S. with an increasing usage and prestige? Or will its usage, its speakers and its importance diminish rapidly in number and geographical extension? Can it be retained or will there be a shift into English? This article, written in Spanish, addresses these…

Investigates the use of preposition and subject with the infinitive, a construction not usually mentioned in Spanish grammar books. This construction is as commonplace in some regions as it is unacceptable in others, a situation giving rise to controversy. Some linguists believe that this construction is more prevalent among less-educated people.…

Although Spanish mood has been taught through a framework of categorical rules, recently attempts have been made to clarify the exact nature of certain rules and to better understand the patterns of rule variability that exist outside the classroom. This article examines the intersection of mood with notions such as habituality, general truths,…

Describes the unique situation of an Anglo Spanish-speaking teacher who is assigned to teach Spanish to a group of non-Spanish-speaking youngsters of Puerto Rican descent. Successful strategies for overcoming the socio- and psycholinguistic barriers of working in this situation are listed as the teacher describes how she created a non-threatening…

This qualitative study in an English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) elementary classroom examined teacher and student functional uses of language, particularly code-switching and code-mixing use. Results found that, of the instances of code-switching and code-mixing observed, none were grammatically inappropriate for either English, Spanish, or the…

Forty Spanish-speaking children with reading disability (RD) were matched for age and reading level with normal readers. Since RD children performed more poorly than younger normal readers on a word/nonword naming task in orthographically transparent Spanish, results suggest their poor phonological skills were due to a deficit in phonological…

This paper discusses the slight nasalization occurring in Spanish to the vowels preceding "n" or "m" when placed before a "b" or "p" between two nasal consonants, in word-initial position or in elision. (Text is in Spanish.) (CHK)

The basic functions of the Academy are the editing of a grammar and a dictionary. The article suggests some improvements for the more expeditious and efficient publication of the dictionary. (Text is in Spanish.) (DS)

Presents a conflation of and a comparison between the 1,646 verbs the Royal Academy's "Diccionario de la lengua espanola" (Dictionary of the Spanish Language) classifies as solely or partly intransitive and the 1,382 verbs that are so classified by the "Pequeno Larousse ilustrado" (Illustrated Larousse Small Dictionary).…

This study investigated how immigrants from Latin America who speak indigenous languages perceive and respond to social, racial, linguistic, and cultural factors in the United States. It examined the multicultural and multilingual experiences of six participants, five of whom speak an indigenous language. There were three interviews conducted with…

This article describes the effects of placing Spanish-speaking students in an Advanced Placement (AP) Spanish Language course in the 8th grade. Fifty-eight Hispanic students in the AP class and a similar comparison group answered survey questions on parental involvement, peers, sense of belonging at school, and academic aspirations. Data gathered…

Research suggests that acculturation increases the risk of substance use among Hispanic youth. However, this process is not well understood. This study examined associations between acculturation and several substance use indicators among a sample of 714 Hispanic youth attending alternative high schools in southern California. Peer social…

The inclusion of English Language Learners as a subgroup in the No Child Left Behind legislation has leant additional importance to the need for valid and efficient measures of reading for students whose first language is not English. This study examines the use of Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) reading fluency as a predictor of later reading…

This study was designed to identify strategies used during intentional vocabulary learning and to assess the relationship between strategy use and vocabulary learning performance. English-speaking students of Spanish studied new Spanish words while viewing word-picture pairs. The participants then completed posttests and answered questions about…