Sonia Colina

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Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Martínez-Gil, F., & Colina, S. (2019). Handbook of Spanish Phonology. Routledge.
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  Under contract
• Colina, S., & Angelelli, C. V. (2017). Translation and Interpreting Pedagogy in Dialogue with Other Disciplines. Amsterdam, Philadelphia.: John Benjamins..
• Colina, S. (2015). Fundamentals of Translation. Cambridge University Press.
• Hualde, J., & Colina, S. (2014). Los sonidos del español (collaborator) (co-translation of the Sounds of Spanish by José Ignacio Hualde).
• Núñez-Cedeño, R., Colina, S., & Bradley, T. (2014). Fonología generativa contemporánea de la lengua española.. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
• Colina, S., Olarrea, A., & Carvalho, A. M. (2010). Romance Linguistics 2009. John Benjamins.
• Colina, S. (2009). Spanish Phonology. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.
• Martínez-Gil, F., & Colina, S. (2006). Optimality-Theoretic Studies in Spanish Phonology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
• Colina, S. (2003). Translation Teaching: From research to the classroom. McGraw Hill.

Chapters

• Colina, S. (2019). Incorporating syllable structure into the teaching of Spanish pronunciation. In Routledge’s Advances in Spanish Language Teaching: Key Issues in the Teaching of Spanish Pronunciation: From Description to Pedagogy(pp 145-162). London, New York: Routledge.
• Colina, S. (2019). Phonotactic Constraints on Syllable Structure. In Handbook of Spanish Phonology.
• Colina, S. (2019). Quality. In The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies. 3rd Edition(pp 458-463). London and New York: Routledge.
• Colina, S., & Venuti, L. (2017). A survey of translation pedagogies. In Teaching Translation: Programs, Courses, Pedagogies(pp 203-215). London & New York: Routledge.
• Colina, S. (2016). La sílaba. In Enciclopedia de lingüística hispánica. London, New York: Routledge.
• Colina, S. (2016). On onset clusters in Spanish: voiced obstruent underspecification and /f/. In The Syllable and Stress: Studies in Honor of James W. Harris.. Boston: Mouton de Gruyter.
• Colina, S., & Angelelli, C. (2015). T&I Pedagogy in dialogue with other disciplines. In Translation and Interpreting Studies(pp 1-7).
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  Introductory chapter to guest edited volume of a journal
• Colina, S., & Angelelli, C. (2015). Translation and Interpreting Pedagogy. In Researching Translation and Interpreting(pp 108-117). London and New York: : Routledge.
• Colina, S. (2014). La sílba en la teoría de la optimidad. In Los sonidos del español(pp 86-90). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge UP.
• Colina, S. (2014). La teoría de la optimidad en la fonología del español. In Fonología generativa contemporánea de la lengua española(pp 291-317). Washington, DC: Georgetown UP.
• Colina, S. (2014). La teoría de la optimidad. In Los sonidos del español.
• Colina, S., & MacSwan, J. (2014). Some Consequences of Language Design: Codeswitching and the PF Interface. In Grammatical Theory and Bilingual Codeswitching(pp 185-210). Cambridge: MIT Press.
• Colina, S., Diaz-Campos, M., Frota, S., Vigario, M., & Freitas, M. (2008). Intervocalic velar nasals in Galician: Phonetic evidence for multiple syllabic affiliation. In PROSODIES: WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO IBERIAN LANGUAGES(pp 269-285). WALTER DE GRUYTER & CO.
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  The syllabic affiliation of intervocalic velar nasals in Galician, e.g. unha [una] 'a, one (fem,)' has been a controversial topic amongst scholars for at least three decades. All solutions proposed to date (onset or coda affiliation) are costly from a phonological point of view as they run counter to well-attested principles of phonological theory, such as Structure Preservation (Kaisse and Shaw 1985; Kiparksy 1985; Mohanan 1986) and syllabic markedness generalizations (*VC.V). Recently, however, Colina (2004) has proposed an analysis that does not encounter the difficulties of previous accounts. Colina (2004) argues for an underlying velar nasal realized as a surface geminate that results from the assimilation of an epenthetic onset to the point of articulation of the preceding nasal. It was hypothesized that the phonetic level could provide additional support for the gemination proposal if there were duration differences between the surface geminate (underlying velar) and other context similar nasals syllabified in either onset or coda position. Hence the fundamental goal of this paper is to examine intervocalic nasals in forms such as unha, cunha, algunga from a phonetic point of view and determine whether there are differences between these forms and other intervocalic nasals. Ten native speakers of Galician were asked to read carrier phrases containing the target nasals in three different contexts: 1) hypothesized geminate (e.g. unha 'a'), 2) onset position (e.g. c'un amigolo 'with a friend'), and 3) coda position c'un curandeiro 'with a folk healer' (coda). Phonetic analysis of the recordings reveals that there is a phonetic distinction in terms of length between multiply-linked velar nasals (surface geminates) and other intervocalic velar nasals, thus lending further support to the gemination proposal. The findings have implications for research on the phonology and phonetics of geminates.

Journals/Publications

• Colina, S. (2019). Spirantization in Spanish: The role of the underlying representation. Linguistics. doi:doi: 10.1515/ling-2019-0035
• Colina, S., & Lafford, B. A. (2018). Translation in Spanish language teaching: the integration of a “fifth skill” in the second language curriculum. Journal of Spanish Language Teaching.
• Kloehn, N., Leroy, G., Kauchak, D., Gu, Y., Colina, S., Yuan, N. P., & Revere, D. (2018). Improving Consumer Understanding of Medical Text: Development and Validation of a New SubSimplify Algorithm to Automatically Generate Term Explanations in English and Spanish. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 20(8), e10779.
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  While health literacy is important for people to maintain good health and manage diseases, medical educational texts are often written beyond the reading level of the average individual. To mitigate this disconnect, text simplification research provides methods to increase readability and, therefore, comprehension. One method of text simplification is to isolate particularly difficult terms within a document and replace them with easier synonyms (lexical simplification) or an explanation in plain language (semantic simplification). Unfortunately, existing dictionaries are seldom complete, and consequently, resources for many difficult terms are unavailable. This is the case for English and Spanish resources.
• Revere, D., Yuan, N. P., Colina, S., Gu, Y., Kauchak, D., Leroy, G. A., & Kloehn, N. (2018). SubSimplify – Automatically generating term explanations in English and Spanish when expert and big data dictionaries are insufficient. Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), 8, e10779.
• Revere, D., Yuan, N. P., Colina, S., Gu, Y., Kauchak, D., Leroy, G. A., & Kloehn, N. (2018). SubSimplify – Automatically generating term explanations in English and Spanish when expert and big data dictionaries are insufficient. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 8, e10779.
• Bessett, R., & Colina, S. (2017). Spanish ‘depalatalization’: the synchronic, diachronic and perception perspectives. Borealis – An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics, 6(1), 223-241.
• Coco, L. S., Colina, S., Atcherson, S. R., & Marrone, N. L. (2017). Readability Level of Spanish-Language Patient-Reported Outcome Measures in Audiology and Otolaryngology. American Journal of Audiology, 17, 1-9.
• Mukherjee, P., Colina, S., Leroy, G. A., Pritchard, T. G., Kauckak, D., Yuan, N. P., Rajnarayanan, S., Diaz, D., Diaz, D., Rajnarayanan, S., Kauckak, D., Yuan, N. P., Pritchard, T. G., Leroy, G. A., Colina, S., & Mukherjee, P. (2017). NegAIT: A New Parser for Medical Text Simplification Using Morphological, Sentential and Double Negation. Journal of Biomedical Informatics.
• Mukherjee, P., Leroy, G. A., Kauckak, D., Rajnarayanan, S., Diaz, D., Yuan, N. P., Pritchard, T. G., & Colina, S. (2017). A New Parser for Medical Text Simplification Using Morphological, Sentential and Double Negation. Journal of Biomedical Informatics.
• Sanchez, D., Adamovich, S. L., Ingram, M., De Zapien, J. G., Harris, F. P., Colina, S., Sanchez, A., & Marrone, N. L. (2016). The Potential in Preparing Community Health Workers to Address Hearing Loss.. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology.
• Colina, S., Marrone, N. L., & Ingram, M. (2016). Translation Quality Assessment in Health Research: Problems of back-translation. Evaluation and the Health Professions.
• Colina, S., Marrone, N., & Ingram, M. (2016). Translation Quality Assessment in Health Research: Problems of back-translation. Evaluation and the Health Professions.
• Ingram, M., Marrone, N. L., Daisey, S. T., Sander, A., Navarro, C., De Zapien, J. G., Colina, S., & Harris, F. P. (2016). Addressing Hearing Health Care Disparities among Older Adults in a US-Mexico Border Community. Frontiers in Public Health. doi:/dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2016.00169
• Colina, S., & Angelelli, C. (2015). T&I pedagogy in dialogue with other disciplines. Translation and Interpreting Studies, 10(1).
• Colina, S., & Simonet, M. (2014). Galician coda restrictions and plural clusters. LINGUISTICS, 52, 1433-1460.
• Simonet, M., & Colina, S. (2014). Galician coda restrictions and plural clusters. Linguistics, 52, 1433-1460.
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  The present study investigates the phonology and phonetics of Galician post-vocalic velar nasals. Galician has very strict coda restrictions – it does not allow for complex codas. One exception to this restriction is found in the plurals of words ending in a nasal consonant, which add /s/ to the “right” of a noun or adjective: man ‘hand’, mans ‘hands’; pan ‘bread’, pans ‘breads’. The present study puts forward a proposal, initially based on synchronic, formal phonological grounds, according to which post-vocalic, pre-/s/ nasals in plural forms are not nasal stops, but nasal glides. Their nature as nasal glides allows for their syllabification in the nucleus rather than in the coda, thus preserving (i.e., not violating) the restriction on complex codas. This proposal is then tested with a production experiment based on quantitative acoustic data. The acoustic study reveals indeed a difference in the degree of weakening of post-vocalic nasals, with pre-/s/ nasals in the plural forms showing a significantly higher degree of weakening than pre-/s/ nasals in the singular forms. The article concludes with an Optimality-Theoretic analysis of the phonological facts.
• Colina, S. (2013). Galician geada: In defense of underspecification in Optimality Theory. LINGUA, 133, 84-100.
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  In Galician geada a voiced velar fricative or approximant surfaces as a voiceless fricative in all contexts except post-nasally, e.g., pega [pexa] 'magpie' (non-geada dialects [pe(sic)p]) vs. longo [Io eta go] 'long'. Although geada seems to be a rather basic phonological problem, existing analyses are complex. This paper shows that the analysis becomes quite straightforward once the connection of geada with voiced obstruent alternations is recognized. The proposed account obviates the need to resort to controversial mechanisms such as constraint conjunction and sheds light into the allophonic realizations of voiced obstruents. One crucial aspect of voiced obstruent allophones in Galician is their predictability and their underspecification for continuancy. Underspecification is argued to be compatible with Optimality Theory, as long as the underspecified input is not stipulated, but derived from the constraints and constraint ranking. In Galician the phonological system reveals the need for a three-way contrast in obstruents: [-continuant], [+continuant] and underspecified [continuant]. The findings about voiced obstruents have consequences for NC heterosyllabic clusters, showing that there is no voicing requirement at stake, rather a continuancy one, according to which voiced obstruents must be [-continuant] after nasals. Only voiced obstruents agree in continuancy with nasals, because only voiced obstruents are underspecified for continuancy. Constraint reranking accounts for dialectal variation. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
• Colina, S. (2013). Galician geada: in defense of underspecification in Optimality Theory. Lingua, 133, 84-100.
• Colina, S. (2011). Morphophonology. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 4(1), 173-192.
• Colina, S. (2008). Translation Quality Evaluation Empirical Evidence for a Functionalist Approach. TRANSLATOR, 14(1), 97-134.
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  Following a review of existing approaches to translation quality evaluation, this paper describes a proposal for evaluation that addresses some of the deficiencies found in these models. The proposed approach is referred to as componential because it evaluates components of quality separately, and functionalist, because evaluation is carried out relative to the function specified for the translated text. In order to obtain some empirical evidence for the functionalist/componential approach, a tool was developed and pilot-tested for inter-rater reliability. In addition, the research project sought to obtain some data on qualifications of raters/users and their performance using the tool. Forty raters were asked to use the tool to rate three translated texts. The texts selected for evaluation consisted of reader-oriented health education materials. Raters were bilinguals, professional translators and language teachers. Some basic training was provided. Data was collected by means of the tool and a questionnaire. Results indicate good inter rater reliability for the tool; teachers' and translators' ratings were more alike than those of bilinguals; bilinguals were found to rate higher and faster than the other groups. The results provide support for further research and testing of this tool and offer evidence in favour of the approach proposed.
• Colina, S. (2009). Further evidence for a functionalist approach to translation quality evaluation. TARGET-INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF TRANSLATION STUDIES, 21(2), 235-264.
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  Colina (2008) proposes a componential-functionalist approach to translation quality evaluation and reports on the results of a pilot test of a tool designed according to that approach. The results show good inter-rater reliability and justify further testing. The current article presents an experiment designed to test the approach and tool. Data was collected during two rounds of testing. A total of 30 raters, consisting of Spanish, Chinese and Russian translators and teachers, were asked to rate 4-5 translated texts (depending on the language). Results show that the tool exhibits good inter-rater reliability for all language groups and texts except Russian and suggest that the low reliability of the Russian raters' scores is unrelated to the tool itself. The findings are in line with those of Colina (2008).
• Colina, S. (2009). Sibilant Voicing in Ecuadoran Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 2(1), 3-29..
• Colina, S. (2008). The Role of Language Variation in Mental Grammars: An Optimality-Theoretic Perspective. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 1(2), 435-446.
• Colina, S. (2008). Translation Quality Evaluation: Empirical Evidence for a Functionalist Approach.”. The Translator, 14(1), 97-134.
• Colina, S. (2006). No "double plurals" in Dominican Spanish: an optimality-theoretic account. LINGUISTICS, 44(3), 541-568.
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  In addition to standard methods of pluralization, Dominican Spanish has an alternative plural formation mechanism, normally referred to as the "double plural," in which -(e)se [(e) se] is adjoined to the base, libro > librose 'book-books" mujer > mujerese 'woman-women' (Jimenez Sabater 1976; Nunez-Cedeno 1980; Harris 1980; Terrell 1986; Nunez-Cedeho 2003). Extant analyses of double plural formation in Dominican Spanish suffer from framework-specific problems and more general ones, having to do with overgeneration of forms and inability to reveal the true nature of the process. Most analyses postulate a separate plural morpheme for Dominican "double plurals" /(e)se/.
• Colina, S., & Diaz-Campos, M. (2006). The phonetics and phonology of intervocalic velar nasals in Galician. LINGUA, 116(8), 1245-1273.
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  Galician intervocalic velar nasals have traditionally been considered derived segments. Scholars. however, have been unable to agree on their syllabic affiliation. with all syllabification proposals to date running counter to well-attested principles of phonological theory. Moreover, little is known about the phonetic properties of these segments beyond their nasal and velar qualities. The primary objective of this paper is therefore to contribute to our understanding of the phonology and phonetics of intervocalic velar nasals in Galician. This article reexamines existing phonological accounts of intervocalic velar nasals including a proposal in which these segments are argued to be underlying velar nasals with a geminate realization. The phonological proposal is complemented by a phonetic study on gemination that seeks to determine whether there are durational differences between the proposed underlying velar nasals and other velar nasals. The results show that, while longer than singletons, the Galician segments are not as long as underlying geminates. thus supporting the presence of non-contrastive gemination in Galician intervocalic velar nasals. This article illustrates the role played by phonetic investigation in phonological research and has implications for the study of gemination and for a theory of language change. (c) 2005 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Proceedings Publications

• Kauchak, D., Leroy, G. A., Pei, M., & Colina, S. (2019, November). Predicting Transition Words between Sentences for English and Spanish Medical Text. In AMIA.
• Colina, S., Diaz, D., Naverrete, B., Kauchak, D., Leroy, G. A., & Mukherjee, P. (2017, November). The Role of Surface, Semantic and Grammatical Features on Simplification of Spanish Medical Texts: A User Study. In AMIA Fall Symposium.

Presentations

• Rodríguez-Guerra, M., Fabiano-Smith, L. C., & Colina, S. (2020, February). Early acquisition of speech and between-language interaction. Evidence from gliding in bilingual preschoolers. 7th National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico.
• Colina, S. (2019, May). Translation and Interpreting in the Language Classroom. ATISA (American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association) Summer School. Tucson, Arizona: ATISA (American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association).
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  I was one of 5 faculty teaching in the Summer School. This was my presentation (in addition to tutoring and mentoring of students).
• Colina, S. (2019, October). Approaches to Translation Evaluation. Translation and Research in the Humanities, Workshop. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, Goteborgs University.
• Carvajal, S. C., Colina, S., Piper, R., Coco, L. S., Ingram, M., Wong, A. A., & Marrone, N. L. (2018, November 15). Community-based Hearing Loss Education and Support Groups for Older Hispanic/Latinx Adults. The Gerontological Society of America 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting. John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts: The Gerontological Society of America.
• Colina, S. (2018, October). Translation in language classes: A translator pipeline. American Translators Association. New Orleans.
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  2 hour workshop--invited
• Colina, S., Casillas, J., & Díaz, Y. (2018, October). Syllabic affiliation of prevocalic glides in Sonoran Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium.
• Marrone, N. L., Carvajal, S. C., Carvajal, S. C., Wong, A. A., Colina, S., Colina, S., Piper, R., Piper, R., Ingram, M., Coco, L. S., Coco, L. S., Coco, L. S., Piper, R., Ingram, M., Ingram, M., Colina, S., Wong, A. A., Wong, A. A., Carvajal, S. C., , Marrone, N. L., et al. (2018, November 15). Community-based Hearing Loss Education and Support Groups for Older Hispanic/Latinx Adults. The Gerontological Society of America 2018 Annual Scientific Meeting. John B. Hynes Veterans Memorial Convention Center in Boston, Massachusetts: The Gerontological Society of America.
• Colina, S. (2017, Jan.). Non-literary translation in the liberal arts curriculum and beyond: Challenges and opportunities. MLA. Amsterdam, Philadelphia.
• Colina, S. (2016, April). Translation Quality in Cross-Cultural Research: From back-translation to a functionalist collaborative approach. Biannual Conference of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA). Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Monterey, CA, USA.
• Colina, S. (2016, March). Translation Studies, Language for Specific Purposes and Heritage Language Teaching: convergence, divergence and new directions. International Symposium on Languages for Specific Purposes/CIBER Business Language Conference. Phoenix, ASU Downtown.
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  Panel organizer and presenter
• Adamovich, S. L., Carvajal, S. C., Ingram, M., De Zapien, J. G., Harris, F. P., Colina, S., & Sanchez, D. (2015, March). Community-based participatory research on hearing loss in a border/low-resource community. American Auditory Society Scientific & Technology Meeting. Scottsdale, Arizona: American Auditory Society.
• Bessett, R., & Colina, S. (2014, November). Depalatalization in the synchronic and diachronic phonology of Spanish. Hispanic Linguistics Symposium, Purdue University.
• Colina, S. (2014, April). In support of a (minimalist) componential approach to translation competence. Biannual Conference of the American Translation and Interpreting Studies Association (ATISA). New York U..
• Marrone, N. L., Sanchez, D., Ingram, M., De Zapien, J. G., Harris, F. P., Colina, S., Piper, R., Carvajal, S., Marrone, N. L., Sanchez, D., Ingram, M., De Zapien, J. G., Harris, F. P., Colina, S., Piper, R., & Carvajal, S. (2014, November). Development of a Community Health Worker Approach to Expand Access to Hearing Health Care. Gerontological Society of America Scientific Meeting. Washington, DC: Gerontological Society of America.

Poster Presentations

• Colina, S. (2019, March 1). Effective Communications with LEP Populations in Disaster Response. National Institutes of Health’s, Disaster Research Response Workshop. Tucson, Arizona: National Institutes of Health’.
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  on behalf of the National Center for Interpretation, with the collaboration of Holly Silvestri
• Kauchak, D., Colina, S., Navarrete, B., & Leroy, G. A. (2017, November). Spanish Text Simplification Using Term Familiarity: Applying Principles from English Text Simplification. AMIA Fall Symposium. Washington DC.
• Sanchez, A., Marrone, N. L., Ingram, M., Sanchez, D., Colina, S., De Zapien, J. G., Adamovich, S. L., & Carvajal, S. C. (2016, October). Family Perspectives on Hearing and Communication Among Mexican American Older Adults. World Congress of Audiology. Vancouver, Canada.
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  Sanchez, A., Marrone, N., Ingram, M., Sánchez, D.,Wong, A., Colina, S., de Zapien, J., Adamovich, S., &Carvajal, S. (September 2016) Family perspectives onhearing and communication among Mexican-Americanolder adults. Poster presented at the 33rd World Congressof Audiology. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Reviews

• Colina, S. (2013. Segmental and prosodic issues in Romance phonology(pp 171-177).
• Colina, S. (2008. Pragmatics at work: The translation of tourist literature.(pp 131-133).

Others

• Colina, S. (2019, March). Understanding Community Health Impacts. National Institutes of Health, Disaster Research Response Workshop.
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  Panelist. Invited to discuss translation and language barriers
• Colina, S. (2018, May). Translation and Interpretation in the Curriculum. ADFL.
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  Discussion Group ModeratorADFL Summer Seminar, Michigan State University
• Colina, S. (2017, May). Translation and Interpretation in the Curriculum. ADFL.
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  Discussion Group Moderator