I would begin by investigating the different dialects within Spanish and specifically how they differ geographically between North America/Mexico, South and Central America, and Spain. I would get started using the book that Dr. Marsh-Soloway generously gave me on accent variation in order to give myself more of a background on the subject beyond what I have observed, and from there I would use my research grant to travel to a country in each of these regions and interview local native speakers about how they perceive the accents of speakers in other regions and countries. I would also give special attention to the concept of code switching and would investigate how this affects Latin American Spanish speakers in comparison with Spaniard Spanish speakers, and I would see if my hypothesis is accurate that Spaniard Spanish speakers at times receive preferential treatment due to their more privileged European identity. In terms of how the different structural components presented in class would appear in my work, I would focus on dialectical variation, language family trees in order to trace the roots of different dialects in different regions, stress/length, tap/trill, and cultural competence.
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