SPAN 411The ABCs of Bilingualism: Acquisition, Brain, and Community

3 credits · Spanish · Penn State

In SPAN 411 , students will learn to understand the bilingual landscape of the Spanish-speaking world and its consequences for communities and individuals. SPAN 411 the ABCs of Bilingualism: Acquisition, Brain, and Community will showcase the fundamental components of bilingualism (first language acquisition, language mixing, language and society, language contact, and cognitive consequences of bilingualism) situating them in the Spanish speaking world. The course requires an introductory level understanding of linguistics and presupposes familiarity with Spanish at the 15-credit level or higher. The purpose of this course is to adopt an understanding of the underlying mechanisms of bilingualism and what it means to be a bilingual speaker, as well as understand the community-level impact of speaking multiple languages. Students will learn theories surrounding the study of bilingualism and apply linguistic knowledge to better understand bilingual communities that are new to them.