Advanced grammar courses often present standardized grammar rules to students without considering sociolinguistic variation. As a result, many native/heritage students feel that they speak “incorrectly,” and many second language learners do not get an accurate picture of the target language's real‐world grammar. This article describes and evaluates a unique approach to teaching advanced Spanish grammar to university students. The curriculum focuses on core grammatical content by studying structures that are subject to sociolinguistic variation, as in había ∼ habían dos ranas [there was ∼ were two frogs], and it highlights the sociopolitical factors that explain why some forms are deemed prestigious. To test the efficacy of this curriculum, students enrolled in an advanced Spanish grammar course at a large university in the southwestern United States completed a pre‐ and posttest that measured Spanish grammar knowledge, awareness of sociolinguistic concepts, and positive language attitudes. Results showed statistically significant gains with respect to knowledge of grammar and sociolinguistics. Students also demonstrated a heightened awareness of how prejudice can manifest in judgments of spoken language.
There is an extensive bibliography on the meanings of the Spanish preposition para but very little has been done to address the different traits that this form acquires in contact varieties of Spanish. Paraguayan Spanish exhibits a high incidence of an innovative use of the preposition para that has been attributed to contact with Guaraní: the 'anticipated possession' construction, which has similar characteristics to the Guaraní marker of prospective aspect -rã. Comparative data confirm the existence of a close correspondence between this innovative extension of para and the uses of -rã. We propose a process of grammatical replication (Heine & Kuteva 2005) by which para has acquired an aspectual function not evident in Standard Spanish. We show that the semantic and grammatical shift is motivated by specific intersecting semantic components of para and its Guaraní counterpart. We trace the path of grammaticalization from minor incipient uses to systemic contact-induced change, whereby para discards its prepositive function in favor of an overt representation of an aspectual role.
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