SPA 3150: Linguistic Analysis of Spanish
- Getting Started
- Books
- Articles
- Newspapers
- Web
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Once you have determined a topic, issue or subject of interest, you will need to focus the topic into a researchable question.
The following steps should help you break the process down:
- Plan your approach to the topic. Identify related issues, people, events etc. Determine your perspective. List what you know and what you need to know.
- Develop keywords that represent your topic. You'll use these to search for books and articles for your paper. Encyclopedia and reference books can help identify keywords.
- Read around your topic to develop a comprehensive understanding of your topic. Utilize reference sources to provide you with an overview and background information on a topic, the established knowledge on a topic, the most important facts about a topic, the key figures, places, or events related to your topic and a list of recommended readings on a topic
See the following sections to give further advice on developing keywords and background information.
Before you start to research a topic, you need to develop keywords that represent your research interest, question, or inquiry.
Keywords are significant words (usually nouns or noun phrases) which can be used as search terms in online catalogs or databases. Keywords will determine the quantity and relevance of results you retrieve when searching.
First you will identify and articulate your topic in your own words:
Example: I am interested in investigating Spanish pronunciation in linguistics
Next you will designate the main concepts or ideas that describe the topic:
Concept 1:
Spanish
Concept 2:
pronounciation
Concept 3:
linguistics
Then develop other terms and vocabulary that represent the topic. Some terms may be broader, narrower, or synonyms. Adding terms that represent geographical distincitions, time periods, or significant figures about your topic may also be useful.
Concept 1:
Spain
Iberia
Latin America
Castilian
Hispanic
Concept 2:
articulation
diction
accent
elocution
speech
Concept 3:
philology
grammar
language
speaking
dialects
Combining Keywords
Operators:
AND: Bolivia AND Phonetics (must find both terms)
OR: ceceo OR seseo (must find one of the terms)
NOT: Andes NOT Peru (must find first term NOT second term)
Punctuation:
Phrases: “Puerto Rico” (must find that phrase in that order)
Synonyms: (Ecuador OR Equador) AND immigrants
Wildcards: Latin America* will find Latin American, Latin Americans etc
You may use the UCB Search Strategy/ Keyword Worksheetto develop your own topic.
For details on combining keywords for the best results view the
A good place to find keywords is from reference sources.
Reference Universe: This is a searchable database that indexes information from specialized subject encyclopedias. It does not include the full text of reference materials but will point you to reference sources that cover your topic. It searches both the titles of reference articles as well as the encyclopedia / dictionary indexes, providing a thorough level of access to materials and potential sources. CU
Some more CU Reference Source examples:
General Online Encyclopedias:
Encyclopedia Britannica CU
Gale Virtual Reference Library CU
Oxford Digital Reference Shelf CUWorld Atlas of Language Structures
Specialized Dictionaries:
Oxford Language Dictionaries Online
Diccionario De Uso Del Español / María Moliner
REF PC4625 .M6 2007
Tesoro De La Lengua Castellana O Española
REF PC4620 .C7 2006
Diccionario Panhispánico De Dudas
REF PC4460 .D53 2005
Diccionario De Lingüística
REF P29 .D518 1983
A sourcebook for Hispanic literature and language : a selected, annotated guide to Spanish
REF Z2695.A2 B55 1995
Diccionario de terminología lingüística actual
REF P29 .T418 1981
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language.
REF P29 C64 1987
International Encyclopedia of Linguistics.
REF P29 I58 2003 v.1-4.
For more reference source search tips, go to How do I find Reference Sources.
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Chinook is the catalog for materials owned by the CU Libraries. You can also use MyChinook to manage your library account (including renewals, holds, recalls, saved searches, etc.)
If you search Chinook and find that the CU Libraries do not have the item you are looking for (or if the item you are looking for is checked out), you can search Prospector, which is a combined library catalog of 23 libraries in Colorado and Wyoming.
If the item you are looking for is not in Chinook or Prospector, you can request it through Interlibrary Loan (ILL). Generally, an ILL request will take longer to be delivered than material requested through Prospector.
To find books on a topic do a KEYWORD search in Chinook.
To find books by an author do an AUTHOR search in Chinook.
To find books about an author or an author's work, do a KEYWORD search in Chinook for the author's name.
Or do a SUBJECT search in Chinook to browse the subjects in the catalog:
Use and Adapt these Subject Keywords |
| Linguistics |
| Historical linguistics |
| Spanish Philology |
| Languages, Modern -- Phonetics |
| Spanish Language [Name of Country] |
To browse linguistics books, use the following call number ranges:
P1-85 Linguistics in General
PC4001-4977 Spanish Language/Linguistics
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If you are looking for articles on a particular topic, you can use many relevant databases that CU Libraries subscribes to. Some of the article databases only include citation information about the article, while others include access to the full-text of the document, usually in either PDF or HTML format.
The most relevant databases for Spanish Linguistics are listed below. You can also try the Find Articles & More page where the databases are organized by subject/ discipline categories.
Video Tutorial: Finding databases
Bibliographie linguistique online
Provides bibliographical references to scholarly publications on all branches of linguistics and all the languages of the world, irrespective of language or place of publication. CU
CSA linguistics and language behavior abstracts
The database covers all aspects of the study of language including phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics. Includes descriptive, historical, comparative, theoretical and geographical linguistics.CU
More than 30,000 abstracts from nearly 400 linguistics journals published since 1985.CU
MLA international bibliography
The major index published by the Modern Language Association. Index to articles in literature, languages, linguistics, drama/theatre, and folklore from several thousand journals and series published worldwide. Also covers relevant monographs, working papers, proceedings, and bibliographies. Includes the MLA Directory of Periodicals. CU
Bibliography of Linguistic Literature (BLL).
One of the most important sources of bibliographical information for general as well as English, German and Romance linguistics.
CU = Available to CU affiliates only.
How to connect from home: Remote access information.
This scholarly multi-disciplinary database provides full text journal coverage for nearly all academic areas of study - including social sciences, humanities, education, computer sciences, engineering, language and linguistics, arts & literature, medical sciences, and ethnic studies. CU
Hapi: Hispanic American periodicals index
The Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI) is your source for over 265,000 journal article citations about Central America, South America, the Caribbean, Mexico, Brazil, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States. HAPI currently provides over 34,000 links to the full text of articles appearing in more than 500 key social science and humanities journals published throughout the world. CU
Video Tutorial: Searching HAPI
Articles from scholarly journals in the fields of Film, Folklore, Gender Studies, History, Literary & Social Criticism Literature, Philosophy, Religion and Theology
JSTOR CU
Articles from back issues of selected scholarly journals in history and other fields of the humanities and social sciences.
CU = Available to CU affiliates only.
How to connect from home: Remote access information.
Most access to Spanish and Portuguese language newspapers at CU will be online.
Video Tutorial: Finding newspaper databases
To find access to a specific newspaper, do a title search in Chinook. Chinook will tell you where the newpaper is held, what dates the library has and the format of the holdings (digital or microfilm.)
E.g.
País (1134-6582)
| Pais |
| from 02/01/2005 to 12/07/2007 in LexisNexis Academic |
| País - All Editions (Spanish Language) |
| from 02/01/1995 to present in Factiva |
Also try the following digital repositories for newspapers:
Online version of the major Spanish daily newspaper. Provides complete full-text access to the current issue as well as the Hemeroteca, the complete, searchable archive of the publication.CU
An interdisciplinary, bilingual (English and Spanish) and comprehensive full text database of newspapers, magazines and journals from ethnic, minority and native presses. CU
Video Tutorial: Searching Ethnic Newswatch
Provides worldwide full text coverage of local, regional, national, and international newspapers. CU
A digital library of digitized Spanish newspapers from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
http://hemerotecadigital.bne.es/inicio.htm
Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Historica
http://prensahistorica.mcu.es
Providing access to digitised historical newspapers from Spain, this database covers over 2000 historical newspapers, which were printed between 1777 and 2005.
Full text newspaper archive of 35 newspapers in English, Spanish and Portuguese printed throughout Latin America and the Caribbean in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Some Spanish and Portuguese language material. (mostly major titles)
CU = Available to CU affiliates only.
How to connect from home: Remote access information.
Have a look at these websites for further information about grammar and Spanish linguistics:
Glosario lingüístico electrónico
Online Linguistics Resources: Intute
Carnegie Mellon University CMU, Languages and Linguistics: http://eserver.org/langs/
