Spanish and Portuguese Across Time highlights the range possible for
scholars trained in a department of linguistics and literature, and
shows that these disciplines need not be mutually exclusive. It covers a
diverse range of topics, which nevertheless retain a common focus, on
the dynamic nature of languages and the social forces that shape them
across time, place, and borders. Themes in Part I - Linguistics and
Literature: Translation, Society, and Language Variation - include the
literary representation of speech, social, and regional variation, and
some history on linguistic devices used in the service of social
criticism. The work here demonstrates how linguistic principles can
offer productive angles to the study of literature, and that literary
sources can serve as data for linguistic analysis. The papers in Part
II - Language Change, Language Contact, and Language Users - continue
the focus on the interface between language and social factors, with
both historical and present-day data on speech and speakers' behavior.