Reflections

As I come to the end of the semester (and of this degree, in fact), I feel it is important to reflect on some of the things that I have learned in this class. I have always been happily conscious of the fact that Spanish is a part of my identity (in fact, I get homesick when I visit family from other parts of the country and don't hear the language at least once a day), I must admit that I was unaware of just how deep its roots in this region go. My favorite part of the class was learning about what Bills and Vigil call Traditional Spanish, and about the various linguistic characteristics that set it apart as a legitimate variety of Spanish. Code-switching was also interesting to learn about, especially since it psycholinguistic and therefore largely unconscious. Maybe one day I'll come home to linguistics again and delve more deeply into this interesting field of study. I even enjoyed learning about the bilingual education debate, and how people deal with it. I know there is much more that I could talk about, but we simply discussed too many interesting topics and issues for me to comment on all of them. I will simply say that this was a wonderful class; thank you everyone for a rewarding and enriching experience!