Professor Emeritus

Jonathan Holmquist 8818 (1).jpg

jholmqui@temple.edu 448 Anderson Hall 1114 Polett Walk Philadelphia PA 19122 Expertise Spanish Sociolnguistics, Spanish Dialectology, Language Contact

Jonathan Holmquist is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Temple University in Philadelphia.  He joined the department in 1985.  His Ph.D. is in Linguistics from Princeton University; he also received MA’s in Spanish and Portuguese from American University.  His research has focused on dialectal variation and socio-historical context in northern Spain and central Puerto Rico, and on Spanish / Kaqchikel Maya contact in the central highlands of Guatemala.  He is the author of Language loyalty and linguistic variation: A study in Spanish Cantabria and co-editor of the Selected proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics.  His research articles have appeared in Language in society, Language Variation and Change, the International Journal of the Sociology of Language, American Anthropologist, the Modern Language Journal, Spanish in Context, the Handbook of Spanish Socio-linguistics, and in various proceedings of the Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics and NWAVE.

Over the years Holmquist served for periods of time as Department Chair, Chair of the Graduate Committee and of the Undergraduate Committee, and Coordinator of Language Courses.  He also served as Director of the Latin American Studies Semester and of the LASS trip to Mexico.  He has directed numerous dissertations in areas of Spanish Linguistics.

Selected Publications

Holmquist, Jonathan and Hana Muzika Kahn.  Spanish / Kaqchikel-Maya contact: A study in town and village in Guatemala’s central highlands. International journal of the sociology of language, Volume 2017, Issue 248: 3-24.

Spanish / Kaqchikel-Maya contact in town and village: A focus on youth. International journal of the Linguistics Association of the Southwest 31 (2): 57-78.  2014.

Holmquist, Jonathan. Spanish / English contact in rural Puerto: Variation, context, and text. Spanish in context 10 (3): 390-409.  2013.

Frequency rates and constraints on subject personal pronoun expression: Findings from the Puerto Rican highlands. Language variation and change (Cambridge University Press) 24: 203-220.  2012.

Gender and variation: Word-final /s/ in men’s and women’s speech in Puerto Rico’s western highlands. In Manuel Diaz-Campos (ed.) Handbook of Spanish Socio-linguistics. London: Blackwell. 230-243.  2011.

Gender in context: Features and factors in men's and women's speech in rural Puerto Rico. In Maurice Westmoreland and Juan Tomas Testa (eds.) Selected proceedings of the fourth workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (SUNY Albany, 2008).  17-35.  2008.

Variación vocálica en el habla masculina de Castañer, PR.  Cuaderno internacional de estudios hispánicos y lingüística 1: 96-103.  2001.

High lands - high vowels: A sample of men's speech in rural Puerto Rico. In Claude Paradis (ed.) Papers in sociolinguistics: NWAVE-26 a l'Université Laval. Quebec: Université Laval.  73-79.  1998.

Semantic features and gender dynamics in Cantabrian Spanish. Anthropological linguistics 38: 57-83. 1993.

Social and psychological correlates of achievement: Spanish at Temple University. Modern Language Journal 77: 34-44.  1993.

Style choice in a bidialectal village. International journal of the sociology of language 63: 21-30.  1987.

Social correlates of a linguistic variable: A study in a Spanish village. Language in society 14: 192-203.  1985. 

Courses Taught

  • Language in Society
  • Basic Spanish I
  • Basic Spanish II
  • Intermediate Spanish
  • Conversational Spanish
  • (Advanced)Intensive Practice
  • Language Skills/Span. Spkrs.
  • Advanced Skills/Span. Spkrs.
  • Advd. Composition and Conversation
  • Advd. Grammar and Ling. Concepts
  • Spanish Phonetics
  • Intro. to Spanish Linguistics
  • Spanish/English Contrasts
  • Spanish Applied Linguistics
  • History of the Spanish Language
  • Spanish Sociolinguistics
  • Language and Gender
  • Seminar in the Spanish Language
  • Spanish Phonology and Morphology
  • Hispanic Dialectology
  • Spanish Language in Puerto Rico
  • Internship in Teaching Spanish
  • Directed Readings (in Spain)
  • Spain thru Film (in Spain)