Department of Languages, Linguistics and Comparative Literature

The nineteenth century Austrian poet Nikolaus Lenau used
strange associations of words and ideas which are reminiscent
of the bizarre combinations of realism and fantasy the surrealists
used at the beginning of the twentieth century. Categories of
surrealistic devices are set up, and surrealistic paintings and
the poetry of Lenau are discussed using these guidelines.

Esta tesis analiza la obra poetica de Jose de Espronceda
desde el punto de vista de su metrica. Espronceda es catalogado
el tipico poeta romantico espanol. Lo que se pretende aqui
es reiterar, a traves de la metrica, la filiacion del poeta al
movimiento. El estudio esta compuesto de los siguientes capitulos:
I) El romanticismo espanol y su metrica; II) El autor
y su obra; III) Las poesias de Espronceda; IV) Borracores y
copias atribuidos a Espronceca; V) Un poema largo; VI) Otro
poema largo. Siguiendo el resumen del movimiento romantico en Espana
en el primer capitulo, el segundo trae la biografia del poeta.
Los capitulos tres, cuatro, cinco y seis estan dedicados a la
obra poetica de Espronceda. Termina este estudio la conclusion
de que la metrica del poeta comprueba la conexion de este a los
preceptos y caracteristicas del movimiento al que pertenece.

The present study offers a series of observations
based on extensive research into the phonology of the
Spanish spoken in the province of Havana, Cuba.
The phonemes for the province are determined,
and special attention is given to allophonic variants
peculiar to and/or characteristic of Havana.
The allophonic variants are described in detail on
articulatory and distributional criteria.
There is a great deal of emphasis placed on the
description of consonants. The vowels are also discussed.
There is no reference to suprasegmental phonological
data.
After the phonological studied is completed, the
differences in the speech of socioeconomic groups are
explained.

The purpose of the following thesis is to apply Umberto Eco's concepts included in his essay Intentio Lectoris, the Peircean notions of the relationship between the object, the sign, and the interpretant, and other essays that deal with the relationship between the reader, the text, and the author to two Latin American works of literature: one Mexican, Carlos Fuentes's "Chac Mool" and one Argentinean, Jorge Luis Borges's "Las ruinas circulares." The objective is to discuss the structural devices that guide the reader through particular interpretations, analyze the sociohistorical agents that influence the author as well as the reader, and pinpoint the difference between two possible types of interpretation, political and symbolic, based on two concepts pertaining respectively to "Chac Mool" and "Las ruinas circulares:" the statue of Chac Mool as the symbol of the Pre-Colombian traditional values and the dream as a symbol of the process of writing.

Alicia Yanez Cossio, an established novelist and short story writer from Ecuador, reflects on the most serious social problems in her country. She is especially concerned with the Ecuadorian people's identity. In her works she describes how the Church and State, which promote and maintain a patriarchal social structure, have perpetuated the devaluation of women that began with the conquest. This study analyzes how women confront and define their gender as well as their race in two novels: Bruna, soroche y los tios (1972) and La cofradia del mullo del vestido de la Virgen Pipona (2002). As she traces Ecuadorian history, Yanez Cossio draws paralellisms between the loss of identity and gender, and focuses on the repercussions this has had in the lives of Ecuadorian women. Through the characters she offers possible solutions. This thesis analyzes the writer's perspective of the identity problem in this South American country and the fight of its people, most specifically women, to recover their identity by recognizing their indigenous roots and their gender, in a social environment that denies either are significant or relevant.

Critical studies of Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels, while explicating in detail the characterological functions of the women characters, including Gervaise in L'Assommoir and la Maheude in Germinal, have neglected the thematic functions of matriarchy in those texts as in the cycle as a whole. The decline of the matriarch is a prominent component of Zola's naturalistic scheme for the Rougon-Macquart , manifests not only in the increasing corruption of the progeny across the cycle, but primarily in the monographic depictions of the matriarchs themselves. Working-class mothers in particular embody the conflictual tensions of gender inequities and socio-economic deprivations that lead them to produce child-workers to support the family, typically becoming ever more negligent, on the model of Gervaise. Specifically in Germinal, Zola's largely negative conception of the fictive matriarch begins to change. This shift is sustained in subsequent texts of the cycle: the matriarch still suffers almost total loss (of husband, children, position), but she attains a new insight into the socio-economic system that so devours her offspring, and a new lucidity about her position within it.

Global illiteracy remains rampant partly due to confusing definitions, inadequate data gathering, hidden agendas, and improper tools of stimulation. Adult literacy is a problem despite efforts and resources. Using children's and adolescents' literature can improve literacy but it is not being used enough due to false concepts. The problems and an adult non-reader profile are outlined. Current literature on literacy, children's literature theory, and critical plus public intellectual media in academia and popular culture is reviewed. I borrow Martha Nussbaum's idea of the narrative imagination to explore J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter novels. I analyze and then provide a program sketch showing how adults can learn to read while building self-esteem because of innate familiarity with the storytelling tradition, with language, and with ordinary life issues. The literature fosters narrative imagination and encourages discussion. Each new adult reader then adds to the cultivation of humanity.

The purpose of this study is to understand culture as a factor in the motivation of heritage speakers of Spanish to study Spanish at the college level in South Florida. 59 participants divided into three groups of heritage speakers of Spanish at Florida Atlantic University at Boca Raton participated in a questionnaire survey, for a combination of quantitative and qualitative analyses. Subjects were grouped according to the degree of involvement in Spanish-related activities at the college-level. The instrument was a combination of Likert-scale questions as well as open-ended questions aimed at clarifying or expanding on topics presented during the Likert-scale part of the questionnaire. The findings of this study indicate that most heritage speakers understood culture as a part of their identity. Students who were enrolled in Spanish classes were not just looking to expand their Spanish knowledge, but to re-connect and re-establish links with their cultural heritage. Finally, those who chose not to study Spanish cite as their most important reason a dislike for the Spanish language. The results revealed the following implications for the heritage speaker curriculum: the need to address the unique demographic make-up of Spanish heritage speakers in South Florida; the necessity for a consistent and reliable methodology for the identification of heritage speakers, and; the importance of instructors' sensitivity to regional and social dialect variation.

Afro-Puerto Rican Mayra Santos-Febres's novel Sirena Selena vestida de pena (2000) demonstrates the intrinsic social relationship that exists between generations in Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic. The historical similarity between these regions permits a comparison in life stories of marginalized peoples. Puerto Rican godmothers and transvestites Martha Divine and Valentina Frenesâi prepare goddaughter, quinceänera and bolerista Sirena Selena in her performance in order to launch a career and conquer the strategies of survival. Meanwhile, Dominican millionaire Hugo Graubel manages his life publicly as a heterosexual husband and privately as a gay man and strongly attempts to capture enigmatic Sirena Selena. Whereas the Dominican, pre-adolescent, poor, and mulatto Leocadio discovers the veiled world of tourism that offers alternate possibilities of economic survival. The previous generations' transgression of society's binary definitions created alternate spaces that continue to pave the way for future generations that will refuse and resist conforming to static patriarchal and heterosexual mainstream classifications.