The 2025 program will offer one linguistics seminar, team taught by Professors Lunn and Morgan. The course is available for three (graduate) graded semester credits only.
In Guadalajara, class will be conducted four hours a day, for a total of ten days; time will be spent on organization and analysis of data in order to add a new perspective to the out-of-class language experience. In order to take better advantage of the linguistic and cultural resources once in Mexico, students will be asked to begin reading course materials and/or working with web-based activities before July 8.
Graded credit for successful completion of the program will be issued on an official Ohio State transcript. Ungraded (S/U or Pass/Fail) credit is not available for this program. The content and rigor of the Summer Seminars Abroad are consistent with the academic standards of The Ohio State University.
Specific course content is summarized below.
Vocabulary Enrichment:
Organizing, Analyzing, and Teaching the Spanish Lexicon
(Professors Lunn and Morgan, 3 semester credits)
Our vocabulary isn’t a collection of random words, but rather an intricate network of linguistic signs. So it is that we cannot improve our vocabulary by learning a new word every day; we need, instead, to learn how that network is organized. In this course, we will investigate many features of the Spanish lexicon, including the sources of words, how they have changed over time in both form and meaning, their grammatical structure and roles, and different ways of classifying them. Appealing to the native-speaker intuitions of our Mexican hosts, we will gather data through observation, interviews, and documentation of lexical items across the linguistic landscape, and every program participant will assemble their own digital album of memorable words. The outcomes of our study will include our own vocabulary enrichment, as well as that of our students, who will benefit in the fall from our newfound handle on the Spanish lexicon, and from smart materials for its teaching and practice.