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Brown, Esther Lynn

Associate Professor

Positions

Research Areas research areas

Research

research overview

  • Dr. Brown's research centers on the study of phonology (sounds and sound systems) from a usage-based perspective. An understanding of actual use and usage patterns is fundamental in her work. She employs large corpora of spoken Spanish which she analyzes using methods derived principally from Variation Theory. Her work establishes significant correlations between variation and use; specifically between phonological reduction and variables such as word frequency and discourse context frequencies. This line of research has implications for theories that attempt to explain the mechanisms behind language variation and change, as well as for theories of lexical representation that attempt to account for such patterns of variability.

keywords

  • Usage-based Phonology, Language Variation and Change, Spanish in the United States, The Spanish of New Mexico and Southern Colorado

Publications

selected publications

Teaching

courses taught

  • SPAN 2110 - Second-Year Spanish 1
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2020
    Grammar review. Emphasizes reading, writing, and speaking skills. Attendance at the language laboratory may be mandatory. Department enforced prerequisite: SPAN 1020 (min. grade C-). Degree credit not granted for this course and SPAN 2150.
  • SPAN 3050 - Spanish Phonology and Phonetics
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Fall 2018 / Spring 2019 / Fall 2019 / Fall 2020 / Fall 2023
    Designed to teach some of the methods, techniques, and tools of descriptive linguistics as they apply to articulatory phonetics. Students analyze important contrasts between sounds of Spanish and English bymeans of phonetic transcription.
  • SPAN 3120 - Advanced Spanish Grammar
    Primary Instructor - Summer 2018 / Fall 2018 / Fall 2019
    Analysis of texts from morphological and syntactic perspectives. Structural and semantic characteristics of major features of Spanish are studied at the sentence level. Use of these grammatical features is then studied in selected literary texts.
  • SPAN 4430 - Special Topics in Hispanic Linguistics
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2020 / Spring 2022 / Spring 2023
    Examines intensively particular topics or issues concerning Hispanic linguistics selected by the instructor. May be repeated up to 9 total credit hours on different topics.
  • SPAN 5430 - Seminar: Hispanic Linguistics
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2018 / Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2024
    Studies a major topic from an area such as phonology, syntax, history of the Spanish language, Hispanic linguistics and literature, or applied Hispanic linguistics. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Same as SPAN 7430.
  • SPAN 7430 - Seminar: Hispanic Linguistics
    Primary Instructor - Spring 2019 / Spring 2020 / Spring 2021 / Spring 2024
    Studies a major topic from an area such as phonology, syntax, history of the Spanish language, Hispanic linguistics and literature, or applied Hispanic linguistics. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Same as SPAN 5430.
  • SPAN 7440 - Seminar: Trends in Hispanic Linguistics
    Primary Instructor - Fall 2022
    Provides an overview of major trends and issues in Hispanic linguistics, including phonology, syntax, dialectology, sociolinguistics, discourse analysis, text linguistics, semiotics, history of the Spanish language, language acquisition and applied linguistics. May be repeated up to 6 total credit hours. Same as SPAN 5440.

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