Linguistics Seminar Series
Fall 2025
We are thrilled to announce the Linguistics Seminar Series for the Fall 2025 semester. The Linguistics Seminar Series features faculty scholars who are involved in language-related research. The series is co-sponsored by the Department of Writing & Language Studies and the Office for Bilingual Integration.
The presentations will be hosted each Tuesday from 12:30-1:45pm in Edinburg (EHABW 1.406), Brownsville (BSABH 2.112A) and via Zoom. We provide pizza and soda for in-person attendees. Check the flyer or contact john.foreman@utrgv.edu for Zoom information.
This semester includes three special guest speakers who will visit the Edinburg campus on Sept. 16, Oct. 7, and Nov. 18!
Please join us this Fall semester as we learn from and with our featured speakers!
Upcoming Events
Sharing Our Stories: A Journey through Mexican-American Literature and Publishing
Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura will visit UTRGV to share the inspiring trajectory of her career—from growing up as a fronteriza in the US-Mexico borderlands to becoming a Professor of Spanish at the University of Houston and the newly appointed Director of Arte Público Press, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious publisher of U.S. Hispanic literature. Arte Público Press has been instrumental in publishing foundational voices from South Texas, including Tomás Rivera, Rolando Hinojosa, and Xavier Garza. During her visit, Dr. Baeza Ventura will highlight the significance of Mexican American literature within the broader landscape of U.S. literary and cultural history and will address the current challenges facing scholars working to preserve and promote Mexican American cultural heritage
Dr. Gabriela Baeza Ventura is Professor of Spanish at the University of Houston and Deputy Director of Arte Público Press, the nation’s leading publisher of U.S. Latino literature. In her role at Arte Público, she oversees the editorial production of numerous publications and has personally translated more than 50 children’s picture books and 12 young adult volumes, significantly expanding access to bilingual and bicultural literature. She is also the co-founder and co-director, alongside Dr. Carolina Villarroel, of the U.S. Latino Digital Humanities Project—an innovative initiative that recovers and promotes Latino documentary heritage that has been historically silenced, marginalized, or overlooked. Dr. Baeza Ventura’s leadership extends beyond publishing and academia: she serves on the boards of several national organizations and scholarly publications, including the Association for Documentary Editing and the Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Literary Heritage Program, a landmark archival project dedicated to preserving and disseminating Latino contributions to American history and culture.
Puro 956: Slang in the RGV
This paper presents a pilot study exploring the current forms and functions of slang used in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) of South Texas. Slang is difficult to precisely define, but as Dumas and Lighter (1978:13) note, it is “an [indispensable] term…to name a body of lexemes that are distinct from standard [language], jargon, and all other kinds of informal uses such as regionalisms and colloquialisms and which are identifiable primarily by the intent (or the perceived intent) of the speaker or writer to break with established linguistic convention.” Slang identifies one, generally subconsciously, as belonging to a particular informal social group.
Studying slang illuminates the ways language can change, the impact of technology on linguistic change, and the linguistic resources speakers have at their disposal to manipulate and recreate language (Heiman 1967, Mattiello 2008, Danesi 2010, Roth-Gordon 2020, inter alia). It can also help us track various linguistic identities and how they are constructed (Drake 1980, Godley & Carpenter 2007, Slotta 2016, Izmaylova & Zamaletdinova 2017, inter alia) and, of particular interest for our area, help researchers better understand how languages in contact interact (Murray 1996, Rodríguez González 1996, Rodríguez González & Stenström 2011, García 2017, inter alia).
The ultimate goal of our project is to undertake an in-depth documentation of English and Spanish slang as used throughout the RGV by surveying community members from all ages and across social identities. To work out and refine our methodologies, we started with a pilot study collecting slang terms in use among the authors of this paper, the current members of the Cross-Linguistics Undergraduate Board at UTRGV, expanded and corroborated with examples of slang taken from the Corpus Bilingüe del Valle (CoBiVa), a digital archive of sociolinguistic interviews conducted in English and Spanish with residents of the RGV (Christoffersen & Ciller 2024, Christoffersen & Bessett 2019).
In our pilot study, we observe that much of the slang we brainstormed is widespread among those our age, occurring well beyond the RGV. This is to be expected in our modern times of social media and hyperconnectivity. However, not all slang we generated is known or used by the entire group, reflecting the fact that slang usage reflects particular group affiliations and “people who belong to more than one…group might use very different slang depending on who they’re with” (Munro 2009:7). We also identified a number of linguistic devices in the formation of our slang terms, including words derived from clipping (shortening words), metaphorical extensions, synecdoche (using a part to name the whole), eponyms (terms from proper names), reduplication (repetition of words/word parts), acronymy (use of initials), conversion (changing part of speech categories), and borrowing between languages (not only Spanish and English but incorporation of words from other languages as well).
This pilot study provides an initial foundation for our project, helping us to refine our methodology and to learn about the linguistics of neologisms and slang and research into language and identity, setting the stage for success with our future project.
Dándole voz a la Mariquita: Singing Latina Womanhood and the Immigrant Experience
My plan is to share about my experience as a singer and monologuist for a bilingual production called SALSA Lotería, an all-women monologue series comprised of seven Latina immigrants and post-migrants. I will discuss how the 1920s Mexican song, "Adiós Mariquita Linda" - which I sang as part of my contribution to the production -- transformed into an anthem for the immigrant experience through lyrical (textual) resignification during the course of our performances in the Boulder, Colorado and surrounding areas. I will elaborate on how this lyrical resignification was directly tied to transgenerational experiences of grief, nostalgia, and resilience among migrant women.
Dr. Teresita Lozano is an Assistant Professor of Musicology and Ethnomusicology at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. A native of the El Paso, Texas – Juárez, Chihuahua borderland, Dr. Lozano engages in research that explores the intersections between music, migration, cultural memory, religion, and identity. Her current monograph project centers on the undocumented migrant experience in the U.S.-Mexico transborder region. A passionate advocate for musical and community activism, she has served as a performer and “border music” specialist for projects in public education and immigrant rights movements. Prior to her position at UTRGV, she served as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Ethnomusicology at West Virginia University. She is also an alumna of the Smithsonian Institution’s Latino Museum Studies Program. She maintains a professional performance career as a flutist and vocalist in multiple global traditions. Dr. Lozano holds a BME with an emphasis in flute from Baylor University and a Ph.D. in Ethnomusicology (Musicology) from the University of Colorado Boulder.
The Work of UTRGV’s Translation & Interpreting Office
This presentation will address the creation of UTRGV’s Translation & Interpreting Office within the demographic and sociocultural context of the Rio Grande Valley. It will briefly provide an overview of the work done by the Office in the first decade of its existence and then move on to focus on the current work that the Office does in terms of translation (e.g., webpages, memorandums of understanding, contracts, marketing materials, informational pamphlets, syllabi, and questionnaires for the institution) and interpreting (for both the institution and external clients).
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