Portal de la lingüística hispánica/Hispanic Linguistics by Javier Muñoz-Basols (review)

The author, a senior academic at the University of Oxford (UK) and current President of ASELE (Asociación para la Enseñanza del Español como Lengua Extranjera), points out on the home page of this web site that this online project is a contribution to the digital humanities and is intended to disseminate study in Hispanic linguistic research. The primary purpose of this project is to provide "un equilibrio entre contenidos pedagógicos, prácticos y actuales, para hacer más accesibles los conocimientos sobre los principales mecanismos lingüísticos del español a un amplio grupo de usuarios (estudiantes, profesores e invesigadores)."

The user-friendly web design for this introduction to Hispanic linguistics is exceptional. At the very top of each page, in all of the sections of this web site, the reader is presented with three options: 1) always translate Spanish to English; 2) never translate Spanish; and 3) never translate this site. Beneath this section, in the top right portion of the home page, the reader may access information about the companion textbook Introducción a la lingüística hispánica actual: teoría y práctica (London and New York, Routledge, 2017), co-authored by Javier Muñoz-Basols, Nina Moreno, Inma Taboada, and Manel Lacorte, and reviewed in the previous issue of Hispania. In this same section, it is possible to access the introductory chapter (Conceptos fundamentales) to the book, including all of the front matter. Next, the reader may access the complete glossary of terms used in alphabetical order in the web site and in the textbook. There is a definition of each concept, and if the reader clicks on the term, a pop-up explanation appears. Likewise, the viewer may click on each letter of the alphabet to get a numerical count of the linguistic terms, which range from 1 item for the letter K and 74 for A (there are no entries for Ñ, W, and X). Moreover, the viewer may access additional related information by clicking on Leer más, which follows the definition. Finally, the reader may provide additional suggestions or references by completing a comment form. Immediately beneath the title of the site, there is a horizontal enumeration of the eight specific areas of linguistic knowledge covered: 1) conceptos fundamentales; 2) fonología y fonética; 3) morfología; 4) sintaxis; 5) semántica y pragmática; 6) historia de la lengua; 7) variación; and 8) adquisición.

Each one of the eight sections, which correspond to chapters in the textbook, follows a symmetric template with seven useful pedagogical components: 1) presentación; 2) actividades del libro; 3) recursos prácticos; 4) temas para investigar; 5) grupos de investigación; 6) conceptos y términos clave; and 7) bibliografía temática. All seven modules are a virtual cornucopia of information in a variety of formats (access to complete articles and other texts, bibliographies, videos, audio materials, dictionaries, linguistic research groups at universities worldwide, and much more).

It is worth discussing the first chapter ("Conceptos fundamentales") in detail, to illustrate the website format for all eight sections of linguistic knowledge. Section 1 features the presentación, which contains a detailed enumeration of the essential elements of each chapter. These include lengua and lenguaje, non-verbal communication, empirical and rationalist approaches to these phenomena, prescriptive, descriptive, and mental grammars, linguistic universals, principles and parameters, animal versus human communication, the seven essential characteristics of human language (arbitrariedad, recursividad, desplazamiento, prevaricación, reflexividad, inter- cambiabilidad, evanescencia), the six functions of language (referencial, emotiva, conativa, fática, metalingüística, poética), neurolinguistics, the primary branches of linguistics, and linguistics as an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary field in the twenty-first century. A noteworthy aspect of the presentación is that all of the key terms are underlined, and when the viewer clicks on them, a definition appears in a pop-up window. Each presentación corresponds to the sections and subsections of...