Hi there!
My family name, Guijarro (= pebble), comes from the Iberian language (if we are to believe philologists). Indeed, although I was born in Caracas (Venezuela) during the Spanish Civil War, I was brought back to Spain when I was 7 months old and never returned to my original country. So, I am Spanish, and live now in the very south of the Peninsula (Seville, for me, is up north!).
I came to Linguistics very late in my career, for I started and got a BA in Law at the Complutense in Madrid (1953-58), and did a Master Degree in Comparative Law at SMU in Dallas Texas (1962-63). I don't know what happened, then, but I decided that I hated law (and order), and so I went back to the University on the wrong side of the situation. First in Madrid (1964-67), then in Paris (1967-68) where I got very much involved in the 1968 riots (I just told you I hated law and order at that time!). I then came back to Spain, ended my degree in German and found a place as assistant teacher of English at the University of Salamanca (1969-1975) where I started teaching American Literature (Henry David Thoreau was the subject of my first university course on the right side of the situation).
My sister had married an English linguist, Julian Dakin, who died abruptly at 30. I then decided to go to Edinmburgh, where they lived (Julian was a Linguistics professor at that University), to stay with my widowed sister. I asked to be accepted in the Applied Linguistics Department (15, Buccleuch Place) and, as a brother in law of the deceased professor, I was immediately admitted on the wrong side of the situation yet again!).
I ended my diploma in Applied Linguistics (1972), went back to the right side of the situation at Salamanca and, from then on, I have dedicated my life to Linguistics. I left the university for the north of France, Lille, where a lady of my liking was working in 1978, spent a bohemian year there playing my guitar and selling my drawings and pictures for my living, and eventually, ended my love affair and my bohemian life, going back to teach morphosyntactics at the University of Seville (1979) where I stayed a couple of years.
The new created University of Cadiz needed a Linguistics professor, so I applied to it, since I love the sea and couldn't stand the summer heat in Seville. And here, since 1981, I spent the rest of my 30 odd professional years, created the English Department, and went on until 2007, when, coming to age (70!), they gave me the sack, although to make it less unpalatable named me emeritus professor (which in Latin means, useless professor).
In Spain we have a fictional character, "el agüelete Cebolleta" (the Little Onion Grandpa), who is the old chap who tries to tell everybody his life story ...
You may call me that, if you wish (you are entitled to it, after reading the above!), or use my first name, José Luis, or simply call me Guijarro in Spanish or (bloody) Pebble in English. You have a wide panoply to chose from as you see!
To end it all, be warned that I am a chomskyan in Linguistics and a Relevance Theorist in Pragmatics. Apart from that, my 15 year old daughter tells me that I am the ugliest chap on earth.
I don't believe her!
