Nicholas Henriksen, Romance Languages and Literatures | 2019-2020
In Spring 2020, I will teach Spanish 487 “Can you speak Andalusian?”, and in Summer 2020, I will teach Spanish 416 “Spanish Sociolinguistics”. These two upper-level research-intensive courses provide insight into the vast dialectal variation in the Spanish-speaking world, with an emphasis on Andalusian Spanish (spoken in southern Spain).
To enrich the active-learning experiences of students in these courses and provide them with critical cross-cultural opportunities, in both courses students will interact with native Andalusian-Spanish speakers on a weekly basis. Specifically, Michigan students will develop ethnographic methods to conduct Spanish sociocultural interviews in virtual formats. The sociocultural interviews will cover themes such as Andalusian linguistic variation, the stereotypes they portray, their presence in politics, and their cultural and regional associations.