This book could not have been published without the help of many people, to whom we are deeply indebted. The words that follow are intended to show our warm appreciation to those who assisted and supported us during the editorial process, and who made this book better.
In the first place, we would like to thank the contributors to this volume, for their expertise, their hard work, and their infinite patience in preparing their chapters according to two successive sets of guidelines—as the manuscript of this book, due to unforeseen circumstances, migrated from a former publisher to the current one, and transformed itself into what the readers have before them today.
Secondly, we are eternally grateful for the encouragement, support, and wise guidance we constantly received from Javier Muñoz-Basols (University of Oxford, UK), the series editor of Routledge Advances in Spanish Language Teaching, without whom nothing of what we achieved here would have been possible. And, of course, we are also very grateful for the valuable suggestions made by the anonymous readers of the publishing house before the proposal was approved and during the final evaluation of the manuscript.
We also want to express our deepest gratitude to the fellow linguists who so selflessly took time from their busy academic schedules to read various chapters of this book and provide helpful suggestions for improvement. They are, in alphabetical order, the following: Aoife Ahern (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain); Diana Bravo (University of Stockholm, Sweden); Carmen Curcó (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico); Carmen García (Arizona State University, USA); Paula Garrett-Rucks (Georgia State University, USA); Nieves Hernández-Flores (University of Copenhagen, Denmark); Derrin Pinto (University of Saint Thomas, USA); and Lidia Rodríguez-Alfano (Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, Mexico).
In addition, we want to express our greatest appreciation to Frank Nuessel (University of Louisville, USA), who not only carefully read the final manuscript and wrote an insightful and detailed report for Routledge, but also made very valuable suggestions regarding the style and the content of each chapter, all with the gracious and unassuming demeanor that is typical of truly great scholars like him.
Last but not least, we deeply appreciate the continuous support we received from the Routledge staff, in particular from Samantha Vale Noya, Camille Burns, Louise Peterken, and Laura Sandford, who guided us with a steady hand through the maze of the publishing process itself.
To all of them, our most sincere thanks. We hope not to have disappointed you, or our readers, in the end.
Domnita Dumitrescu, Los Angeles, CA,
and Patricia Lorena Andueza, Evansville, IN