Course: Fall 2018

Dr. Satterfield is a linguist whose areas of research include child bilingualism, first language acquisition (the roles of [psycholinguistic and sociolinguistic] factors in the morphosyntax of developing grammars), language contact phenomena in the context of U.S. (Afro-)Latino identity and culture. Working closely with the U-M Center of the Study of Complex Systems, she have implemented several agent-based models to construct language contexts, with an eye toward providing greater socio- and psycholinguistic explanations for situations where different language varieties emerge. 

She is currently collaborating with Dr. Ioulia Kovelman (Dept. of Psychology, Center for Human Growth and Development) on the use of fNIRS brain imaging techniques to inform theories of syntactic development and literacy research in bilingual children.

Most recently, she has been involved in organizing a community-based Saturday-morning Spanish literacy program for Spanish-speaking children grades Pre-K to 4 in the Ann Arbor Schools. The program is called: "En Nuestra Lengua" (ENL) www.umich.edu/~tsatter/ENL. www.facebook.com/EnNuestraLengua.

The appealing part of the class was definitely the idea that it was focused on Reggaetón music. I have been a big fan of this kind of music since I got into college and the fact that the university offered a class on it was very exciting and intriguing. I really liked how deep Dr. Satterfield went into all aspects of the genre, from the musical and instrumental aspects, to the lyrical aspects and language, we really analyzed a lot. The most surprising part of this course was probably how much I actually learned about the history of the genre. My favorite assignment has definitely been the final project in which I am making a song. 

To listen to Mitch’s song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e42ojmvg-m8 

I enjoyed learning so much about forms of resistance using language. We analyzed different forms of Spanish that you are never taught in school which has helped me to understand different forms of popular Spanish: spoken, everyday speech.

Dr. Satterfield is a linguist, and even though I’m not, she presented complex linguistic concepts to a beginner audience, and I became obsessed. I especially loved learning about how certain words get carried over from English to Puerto Rican Spanish. I thought I had a pretty good base of knowledge here, but there were some surprises! The Puerto Rican word “cangri” comes from “cangriman” or congressman and is used to mean “leader.” This is exclusive to Puerto Rico because of its historical contact with United States. That was fascinating to learn.

I have loved Reggaetón music for a long time, but you don’t even need to like listening to the music – take this class to learn about the Latin American history, culture, the Spanish language in the Caribbean, race dynamics, gender dynamics, and the social aspects of song lyrics.

I grew up listening to Reggaetón music, so I was immediately intrigued when I heard about this class. In the course description, it mentioned language and race, and I was really interested in learning more about the relationship those concepts have with reggaetón music because that is something I hadn't thought about before. I was also intrigued in the linguistic aspect of this course and examining the words and meaning of them and the impact it has on the reggaetón community. 

My expectation for the class was that it was going to be a fun class, and I was going to enjoy it because it is about a topic that I am familiar with. The class exceeded my expectations because all of the class activities and assignments were interesting and enjoyable. It was also fun being able to talk and work with my classmates because everyone had insightful ideas. I was surprised to see how everyone in class was so engaged and enthusiastic whenever we had class discussions because that is not usually the case in my other classes. There wasn’t a topic in class that was not interesting because Prof. Teresa Satterfield was able to present them in a fun and creative way. 

One of my favorite topics in class is language contact and seeing how the English language can also play a role in many Reggaetón songs through codeswitching and borrowing of words. In class we did an assignment that applied to this topic. We had to pick one of our favorite Reggaetón songs and analyze the lyrics and discuss whether there is any influence of the English language in the song.  I enjoyed doing this assignment because I was able to listen to one of my favorite songs and discuss it in class. 

For my final project, I did a research paper and presentation on a female Reggaetón artist, Becky G. In my paper, I applied all the linguistic and sociolinguistic principles I learned in class to analyze her music and herself as an artist.  I was really excited to do this project on her because she represents something different to the Reggaetón community since she is a woman and of Mexican descent, which is not very common in the genre. Some of my classmates wrote their own songs and it was exciting to listen to them performed in class!

I highly recommend other students to take this class. Even if you do not listen to Reggaetón music, this is a fun way to be introduced to it and learn more about the language of Reggaetón and the relationship it has with race and ethnicity.  Not only do we listen to and analyze Reggaetón songs, but we also discuss topics that are actually interesting such as Spanglish and verbal duels or in order words why certain artist have beef with one another. Prof. Teresa Satterfield really makes this class fun and enjoyable while also making sure that everyone meets the class expectations.

Ella on speaking Spanish and discovering Reggaetón: I have spoken Spanish for 10 years, with the majority of my learning just from the Ann Arbor Public Schools system. I have always really loved Spanish and I wanted to speak it in a way that wasn't incorrect or overly "American" so I tried to find ways to listen to native speakers, to emulate and practice a legitimate accent. One of the biggest ways to learn this accent prior to entering college (all of my college professors are native speakers, but my high school and middle school teachers were not) was to listen to Spanish music, try to identify words, accents, colloquial phrases, and grammatical structures. Through this, I was exposed to a little bit of Reggaetón music, which I know I liked, but could not classify it/identify it until a little later. A little later in high school, Reggaetón was becoming a little more commercial and popular, J Balvin was on the rise, and one of my Guatemalan friends showed me a lot of J Balvin's music and many other artists I did not know about. With college, I learned about more music, definitely honed in on my accent, and went to Cuba and Perú, where I learned a lot about music (specifically in Cuba as the program was dedicated to music) and heard a lot of new Reggaetón songs. Cuba was awesome, too, because we learned a lot about the African and Yoruban origins/influences present in a lot of Cuban music, not just Reggaetón. I knew I loved Reggaetón and loved Spanish, and I figured I would learn about this stuff in Cuba, so this class was a perfect way to compliment/book-end the learning and experience I had in Cuba.

The appeal of Spanish 385: I liked that it offered an intellectual/cultural/linguistic look at a genre of music that is often dismissed or looked down upon. I think it was really appealing to look at the genre more in depth particularly because I only knew the newer stuff and I wanted to see how it connected (or is no longer connected) to its roots. 

I was expecting to analyze a lot about race and language in Reggaetón and the intersectionality of the two. I think in the beginning of the class we really focused a lot on the three (race, language, and Reggaetón) and how they worked together throughout the years. We talked a lot about the whitewashing of the genre in more recent (and commercial) years as well as the different dialects of English/Spanish present in the music. Toward the end of the class, we talked more about language specifically and bilingualism, particularly the different connotations of being bilingual, speaking Spanglish, and the ability to code switch. This was all super fascinating and seemed more like a linguistics course instead of a social sciences course. The class definitely met my expectations and exceeded them, especially with the heavy linguistic emphasis that we had toward the end of the course! As for surprising aspects of the class, we got to meet with a DJ from Panamá who was really cool and he performed for us and explained a lot of cool elements of Reggaetón (moreso the social and racial elements of Reggaetón, not so much the linguistics side).

On taking this class taught exclusively in Spanish: I think a challenging component of the class was understanding the linguistic terms in Spanish. A lot of them were advanced (and I don't know them in English) so it was difficult to learn about concepts using unfamiliar/advanced terminology. Besides that, everything we learned was fascinating! At times certain concepts were challenging, especially some of the linguistic readings, but Teresa did a wonderful job explaining concepts and helping us understand them.

Reggaetón Case Study: My favorite assignment was the case study of a Reggaetón artist. We got to do very fun research analyzing the language used in artist's music and in their ways of speech. Many of the artists were also less famous/from the 1990s or early 2000s and so it was cool to see the ways in which contemporary artists have been influenced from earlier artists, but also how they have divulged from early stylings of Reggaetón. 

A class for all music tastes: What would I say to a student who claims they don't like Reggaetón music? Why should that student still take this class? I would probably tell them they have bad taste in music... just kidding. I think Reggaetón is amazing not only because it's fantastic dancing music, but also because it is incredibly complex linguistically, socially, and racially. It is cool to analyze different artists, too, because while many still talk about drugs, sex, etc., more and more are respecting women, more and more are making music for the sake of unifying people instead of dividing people, and many women are becoming more involved in the previously male-dominated genre. It is fascinating to study for a variety of reasons, even if you don't prefer the genre, because it reveals a lot about gender dynamics, power structures, and the various connotations associated with power and bilingualism.