Since the early 1960s, the "tuteo" (T-T), and particularly the use of tonic "tu" with the "vos" verbal morphology (T-V) has been accepted as typical of the speech of Montevideo, Uruguay, a region generally classified as "voseante". This paper reports on the results of 117 rapid anonymous interviews conducted…

With buying power exceeding $850 billion and tendencies toward brand loyalty, Hispanic consumers are a desirable market. Yet, at a time when North American professional sport leagues and teams have expanded to international territories to increase revenue, market share, and fan base, it is worthwhile to study the extent leagues and teams reach…

In three experiments we examined the effect of schema activation on professional translators who had to read and translate or to read aloud visually presented texts. In Experiment 1, text understanding was improved by presenting a summary before reading aloud the texts. However, prior presentation of the summary reduced comprehension when…

Phonological and visual theories propose different primary deficits as part of the explanation for dyslexia. Both theories were put to test in a sample of Spanish dyslexic readers. Twenty-one dyslexic and 22 typically-developing children matched on chronological age were administered phonological discrimination and awareness tasks and coherent…

Reading comprehension in a second language (L2) is a complex task involving knowledge of vocabulary and grammar as well as controlled attention for continuous updating of information. The purpose was to examine the relative contributions of working memory capacity (WMC), first language (L1) comprehension, and domain experience on L2 reading…

This longitudinal study focuses on the language production of two siblings, aged 6 and 9 at the beginning of the data collection period, who have been brought up in a bilingual family in New York. The parents of the two girls are native speakers of German and Spanish, respectively, and English for them is the language of education and the larger…

This dissertation is a variationist account of two non-standard relative clause (RC) structures in Spanish: resumptive pronouns (RPs) and prepositional-phrase (PP) chopping. Previous typological studies considered RP explanations based on difficulty of processing (Hawkins, 1994), while Spanish-specific quantitative studies proposed a number of…

This article attempts to highlight the importance of theoretical linguistics and empirical cognitive linguistics studies for the practical teaching of Spanish as a second language. Looking at the domain of subject pronominal use as an example, I endeavor to show how formal linguistics can be useful to language instructors. This is a significant…

This study aims to evaluate the predictive validity of the Children's Depression Inventory items for major depression disorder (MDD) in an outpatient clinic sample of Puerto Rican adolescents. The sample consisted of 130 adolescents, 13 to 18 years old. The five most frequent symptoms of the Children's Depression Inventory that best predict the…

We examined whether bilinguals' conceptual representation of homonyms in one language are influenced by meanings in the other. One hundred and seventeen Spanish-English bilinguals generated sentences for 62 English homonyms that were also cognates with Spanish and which shared at least one meaning with Spanish (e.g., plane/"plano"). Production…

This preliminary study investigates the acquisition of second language phonology with respect to two variables: immersion in a target language community, and explicit instruction in the form of a phonetics/pronunciation class. Specifically, the research examines the second language acquisition (SLA) of specific properties of the Spanish phonology…

For socially appropriate communication, speakers must command a variety of linguistic styles, or "registers", that vary according to social context and social relationships. This study examined preschool children's ability to use a speaker's register choice to infer the identity of their addressee. Four-year-olds could draw correct inferences…

Previous research on second language (L2) vocabulary learning has examined the relationship between word properties and learnability (e.g. Ellis and Beaton 1993). Few studies, however, have examined patterns in partial word form learning as a method of assessing learnability and improving our understanding of allocation of processing resources…

Jeniffer, a self-proclaimed "schoolgirl" who was a bilingual Mexican American fifth-grade student, lacked confidence in her abilities in reading and language arts. However, her dialogue journal correspondence with her teacher in her native language of Spanish describing her transnational experiences demonstrated vivid, descriptive writing with…

At Sonrisas Spanish School, educators are interested in finding ways to teach children in the way children actually learn. Their mission is to create high quality, standards-based Spanish classes and curriculum materials that are both effective for teachers and also provide a positive foreign language learning experience for students. They value…