Reflection

As we near the end of the semester, and our presentations/papers are done, I have been able to reflect on what I read in this class. There was nice element of "real life" use of the language and this made a difference in my enthusiasm to learn the technical aspect. In addition, I enjoyed the fact that it was truly related to the Southwest, and we all had an opportunity to relate on a personal level to the topics. There were elements that we could easily transfer to the classroom and this was a nice plus. In summary, I gained information that I never thought would be provided in a linguistics course.

La Raza Graduation

I went to the Raza Graduation ceremony last night and was impacted by the amount of camaraderie that exists between Spanish speakers, despite the country or region of origin. As the director of El Centro put it, "Where else can graduates walk down the line to be greeted by mariachis?". Besides the music and ballet folklorico, there was also a rich amount of Spanish being spoken with pride, respect, and honor. I thought to myself, this would be a great event for both SHL and SSL students to attend. We have a unique university where it's not always necessary to send our students off campus to practice or be exposed to Spanish. There are plenty of events on campus that offer the opportunity. In addition, it's more than exposure to a language, it's all the other stuff that comes with the package of culture: family values, religion, education, politics, music, food, and dance. These were all tightly intertwined with the language spoken last night, and presented a plethora of topics that could be discussed in the classroom.

Reflections

As I come to the end of the semester (and of this degree, in fact), I feel it is important to reflect on some of the things that I have learned in this class. I have always been happily conscious of the fact that Spanish is a part of my identity (in fact, I get homesick when I visit family from other parts of the country and don't hear the language at least once a day), I must admit that I was unaware of just how deep its roots in this region go. My favorite part of the class was learning about what Bills and Vigil call Traditional Spanish, and about the various linguistic characteristics that set it apart as a legitimate variety of Spanish. Code-switching was also interesting to learn about, especially since it psycholinguistic and therefore largely unconscious. Maybe one day I'll come home to linguistics again and delve more deeply into this interesting field of study. I even enjoyed learning about the bilingual education debate, and how people deal with it. I know there is much more that I could talk about, but we simply discussed too many interesting topics and issues for me to comment on all of them. I will simply say that this was a wonderful class; thank you everyone for a rewarding and enriching experience!

Presentations

Ah yes, it's that time of the semester again: time for final papers and presentations! Thus commences the week of sleepless nights and frantic preparations for the end. I just wanted to say that I really enjoyed listening to my classmates' presentations yesterday. They opened my eyes to just how challenging and rewarding teaching can be. Though I have no desire at this time to become a teacher myself (weird, huh?), Ricardo's presentation, as well as Alex and Brizelda's, provided some good food for thought. It really is crucially important to consider the students (their background, wants, and needs) before any attempt to teach actually occurs. Both presentations provided good ways in which to begin with this step. I was especially happy to see a theoretical lesson plan developed with a mixed (i.e. SSL and SHL students) classroom. After spending so much time studying the fundamental differences between these two types of learners, I was beginning to lose sight of how one integrates them in the same classroom. Thanks to all who presented yesterday, and I look forward to tomorrow!

In conclusion...

I am incredibly happy to have taken this class because it has challenged my thought process in a very important way. I've always been of the opinion that in any human relationship, all parties bear equal responsibility for the remedy of conflicts that may arise in that relationship. After reading the barrage of articles concerning the relationship that Spanish speakers have had with the American Academy, I was/am convinced that there are certainly a number of conflicts that exist between this demographic and the Academy. Some are particular to Spanish speakers and some of those dynamics are farther reaching, affecting multiple demographics. The common theme that we see in the published literature is a proposed change in the policy at a given university, or in the methodology of a certain discipline. What I would invite us all to do as both Spanish speakers and, as grad students, full fledged members of the academic world is to consider what both parties to this conflict can do to aid its resolution. How can we work together in cooperation with the academy to effect some of the positive changes we would like to see. As I read for this class, I was overcome by the realization that these articles aren't news stories about things that happened beyond my control. They can be that, but they are also documentation of real life phonomena that are occurring at this university and at others around the country. They are each a call to action, to some degree. This class, at least the prescribed readings, challenged me to critically approach my experience at the University both as teacher and student, and to see the conflicts that are pointed out to me from an empowered perspective that gives me both the ability and the responsibility to do something about them.

Buena suerte con lo que resta del semestre.

Arizona II

Language, it seems that it is a simple thing by just naming the name of one of the major differences of the human kind. Major countries have been founded in the basis of language and some are still pushing the idea that one language means one nation. To think, this idea has some truth, but it can also mean the retention of the roots and sometime the correction of a past that became neglected. The reestablishment of the roots has a way to re-amp the society. This whole Arizona situation is going to give a re-amp to the whole southwest. Next in line to try to pass the immigration law is Texas. Even though I don’t think the law is going to pass in Texas because of the Texas constitution it is going to be interesting if they do pass the law. West Texas is going to be some circus because all immigrants are West Texas.

Arizona

Well, it has been quite a week in Arizona. I have been in touch with several family members and friends and all seem to have the same reaction. Jokingly they tell me they feel like they better not speak Spanish in public or they will get picked up and sent back to MX like Cheech in the movie Born in East L.A. But seriously they are concerned that the law is an excuse for racial profiling and feel like they must carry around a file of documents verifying the legitimacy of their US citizen status. In addition, the fear of speaking Spanish in the public arena seems to be a result for many hispanic members of the community who genuinely fear becoming victims of a law that is being disguised as a "need".

While the border issue is a valid concern for some who live on the border and have been victimized by members of drug related cartels or who have to clean up after travelers who are looking for a new life in the US, I do not think this law is the solution. Not only is this an excuse for racial profiling, but it clearly is sending the message that you should become assimilated and look, speak, act, and forget your heritage or you will be deported. While Arizona has always been a conservative state, (lets not forget the refusal to celebrate Martin Luther King Day and English only ) it seems like the extreme measures are becoming more of a norm.

I mentioned and told everyone the story about how my niece was told not to speak Spanish in school and how they reprimanded her for this. Now it seems this attitude is spreading out into the public and forcing all hispanic to keep their Spanish language at home, maybe. Or not speak it all. One policeman who is opposed to the law mentioned that he felt like if he went to a home where there was a crime and there were several hispanics who all spoke Spanish, he would have to arrest everyone regardless of what the crime was and who had committed it. After all, how could he distinguish who was or was not a US citizen? It seems there is more leniency when one enters this country or is questioned at a Border Patrol stop and the only question you have to answer is US citizen when asked about your citizenship.

In the end, the only thing this law is accomplishing at this time is the creation of a tense environment and fear among those who are not white and blonde.

Citizens of the world...

    In a previous blog entry supporting the need for an SHL track independent of the SSL track, I expressed concern for what was being sacrificed in order to achieve this goal. Indeed, I'm still not thoroughly convinced that separating the Spanish tracks is the most effective way to achieve the goal that we should ultimately be after, but in the absence of a better solution for the short term, I've decided to cast my lot with the split programs. I would like to take the space offered in this blog to discuss what I view as the greatest sacrifice resulting from the separation of the two programs.

    As the title of the blog would imply one of the goals that I would harbor for SHL, indeed for education in general, is the inculcation into students the desire to interface with humanity at large, and to bring an end to destructive nationalism, religious sectarianism, and discrimination on the basis of race/ethnicity, gender, social class and sexuality. Of paramount importance is that we view everyone else, first and foremost, as human beings worthy of our respect and compassion. This is a tradition that dates back a couple centuries B.C. with Socratic Thought. It was further elaborated (at least written about more prolifically) by Seneca and other Greek and Roman Stoic Philosophers as a necessary component to citizenship. The model of the university in its modern iteration is intended to foster that same spirit of preparation for citizenship. By giving the students who come to this campus a breadth of experience in multiple disciplines, we are engaging in an effort to produce roundly educated citizens.

    When we separate the programs in our department we are walking a very fine line. The arguments most commonly lodged in defense of the separation are those of decolonization and cultural affirmation. But these motives are vulnerable to criticism as being divisive and subversive in the aims of the pursuit of common humanity being instilled by the rest of the university. After all, the liberal approach taken by most American educational institutions, one which I tend to agree with, is that only a human identity that is greater than all our subordinate divisions can truly illuminate the need to reflect on one another's experiences across all those divisions. This is the same reason we cannot oblige a heritage language learner to enroll in the SHL classes nor can we exclude a non-Hispanic from enrolling.

    The ideal I would rather see is one in which the education system in New Mexico did a better job at being multicultural/multilingual from K-12 and at the post-secondary level. This is the true path to adequate preparation of citizens prepared to deal this our pluralistic society. Martha Nussbaum writes, "understanding of various nations and groups is a goal for every citizen, not only for those who wish to affirm a minority identity. The goal of education should not be the separation of one group from another, but respect, tolerance, and friendship-- both within a nation and among nations. This goal should be fostered in a way that respects the dignity of humanity in each person and citizen".

    So my decision to support the division of Spanish into two tracks is the result of dissatisfaction with the rest of the system, and not with the idea that having two tracks is the natural way to go. In the ideal situation I would do away with different levels that teach the "same" learning outcomes. Spanish would only be Spanish and it would be taught in a way that fosters a critical approach to intercultural learning as a vehicle to creating in the students a sense of the world citizenship that Socrates and the Stoics so vehemently argued in favor of. This is not to say that I don't already try to foster that sense in my SHL classes, but there is also a competing need to attend to other extralinguistic concerns engendered by a system that has not taken a multicultural approach to education.

Creating indelible language experiences

Today the Spanish 112 classes will be going to East San Jose Elementary School to share their libros infantiles with Sr. Cervantes' second grade class. Just as the students in the SUSHL program are a diverse group with varying abilities in relation to Spanish, so are the students of the dual-language program at East San Jose. Some of these kids are immigrants who have just arrived, others are 2nd-20th generation heritage language learners, while others come with no particular ties to the language (cultural, linguistic, familial, etc.). This last group of students is in the process of creating these ties to the language through the teacher, their interaction with the heritage speakers, and the overall experience they get from being in such a program. This is an environment where SSL learners and SHL learners are put together in the same classroom to learn from each other break down cultural barriers and negative myths. Is this possible at UNM? Perhaps it is easier with children, because both are in the position to develop their language abilities in first and second languages.

Returning to the topic at hand, scholar on education and language acquisition, James Gee, promotes the concept that teaching is all about creating wonderful learning experiences. I look forward to going to East San Jose and observing how all groups of language learners, regardless of age, interact with each other. It is my hope that through positive, indelible experiences with the Spanish language, students will be reconnected with their heritage language and culture, and ideally feel confident and motivated to continue their journey of language maintenance!

On KANW...

    I'm blogging today to tell you that I'm a fan of New Mexico music. Not just a fan, maybe even a junkie. This announcement may be of little surprise, and possibly of even less value to your day as you carry out the ever important, end of semester self-flagellation ritual we grad students pride ourselves in performing twice a year. Nevertheless, I feel I have to say it. In the course of some of our conversations regarding Spanish in New Mexico we have talked about the importance of contextualizing language into our pedagogy. It is important, we have concluded, to teach from a perspective that has some degree of personal relevance to our students. The book that Dr. González Velásquez wrote is important, we've agreed, because it has the names of places in New Mexico, and frames a fair amount of the conceptual knowledge from the local vantage point. And in the course of that discussion a couple different people have said that this is the same reason we listen to New Mexico music, because it relates to us at the local level. I contend that while it does do that, it does a whole lot more.

    That is why I have to write this blog. Because this morning I woke up and popped in a Tiny Morrie CD, served myself a fried egg over leftover Sadie's red chile chicken enchiladas and thought about the mythical aspect of New Mexico that haunts you when you leave this place. I smelled it as I walked out of class yesterday...the same smell that almost brought me to tears while I was watching a movie in a shopping mall theatre in Veracruz and a scene of the night in Albuquerque as seen from the West Mesa came on. A smell came out of a movie?...you're probably asking yourself. All I can say is yes. It was probably Frontier or El Patio I was smelling then and yesterday, but it was a combination of burning comal, green chile, tortilla and crisp air of Fall or Spring. It was searing childhood memories of matanzas, familia, working with horses and cattle, irrigating fields, and throwing parties all over New Mexico (well, from Albuquerque north). And most importantly it was Tiny Morrie singing "Sangre de indio". "...si supieras lo mucho que te amo, que hasta lágrimas lloro por ti."

    By now you're probably thinking, "holy cow, the end of the semester is really getting to Ricardo". But the truth is that this is really the rush of emotions that goes through me when I listen to this music. I don't listen to it to feel connected, to remember that I have a sense of place. I listen to music because it forms part of the myths and cultural memories around which my entire life has been built. "But the music isn't even that good," some of my friends have told me. Then don't listen to it, I've responded. Growing up in New Mexico/Southern Colorado was that good, was that haunting, has left that long of an impression on me. And the meter to which the magic was moving came blaring out of crappy, Kmart-special speakers crackling out tunes from Al Hurricane, Red Wine, Darren Córdova, Mezcal, Perfección, and probably a whole page worth of other artists I could bore you by listing. We don't listen to KANW because it makes us feel good that they mention our town. We listen to this music because it is the soundtrack of our existence, regardless of what anyone else might think. It is music lived, breathed, created, experienced by and for la gente de la tierra de mi chante...órale.

How can we better understand and serve HLLs?

"Most teachers have not been trained to work with students who already speak
or understand the target language or who have a strong connection with it. Similarly, language teachers brought in from countries where the languages are spoken have little or no idea about bilingualism and about the language competencies
of heritage students who have been raised in this country." (Valdes, 2001) The previous quote got me thinking about the fact that our training sessions at UNM for teaching Spanish are a few days long and they occur days before we embark in the task of teaching Spanish to college students in the Basic and Intermediate levels. While on the job, we take a methodology seminar for one semester. My questions are: Is this enough teaching training as to be fully immersed in teaching or be able to apply approaches to bilingualism and language competencies of heritage students ? Should TAs interested in teaching SLLs also take a a class on how to teach HLLs since HLLs in many cases opt to attend SSL classes?

Redesigning teaching practices?

I have read in more than one source that programs for HLL lack a standardized methodology/approach of their own. Take as an example Valdes 2001: "What is needed in order to support this growing interest in developing heritage/immigrant language resources is a coherent body of pedagogical theories about what can be
accomplished in a classroom setting relative to out-of-school acquisition, functions, and rewards." Since there aren't yet national/state standards regarding methods/approaches to better teach heritage background students, can we assume that there is no interest in this group or that standards for SLA apply to this group as well? How far beyond the focus on the 5 Cs: Communication, Culture, Connections, Comparisons, Communities can we go when teaching HLLs?

Un comentario solamente...

Esperemos que lo que acaba de pasar en Arizona nos ayude a entender de manera tangible que no podemos seguir trazando líneas que nos separen y nos etiqueten bajo leyes discriminatorias. Es de gran importancia hacer algo al respecto ya sea por medio de cartas, de blogs, debemos dar nuestra opinión, esta ley afecta no sólo a la población de Arizona sino a todos. El hecho de que algún miembro de la policía o cualquier otro oficial tenga una "sospecha" NO ES RAZON para que se trate a las personas como criminales. Imagínense uno de nosotros una noche yendo al super a la carrera que sólo traigamos licencia y dinero y nos pare un oficial y nos pida una identificación que determine el estatus migratorio, en muchos estados la licencia no es ID que sirva para este propósito vas a ir a la cárcel, y te van a deportar antes de hacerte un juicio, ¿es esto legal? Sé que no debemos escandalizar ni exagerar la ley, pero si pensamos en lo que hace Joe Arpaio en su cárcel no es difícil de suponer que se pueda llevar esto al extremo.
Bueno compañeros es sólo un comentario....

Arizona: New Linguistic Order

Just as I had expected it from Arizona, the law passed. Recently I have been seeing the news and the chaos created with the new law is big in so many ways but since we are speaking of language this law is big for that too. It is my belief that there is a hidden agenda with this new law. Now many of the immigrant families are now fleeing the state of Arizona into other states. One of the states that is going to have a major impact is New Mexico. Being a neighboring state of Arizona a lot of the immigrant families are going to end up in New Mexico. For New Mexico, at least in language terms, this is good. A whole new wave of Spanish is going to settle in the state. The linguistic borders have moves once again. I say that the linguist borders have moved because if you remove all those immigrant families from Arizona you are one step closer to English only. The exposure to the Spanish language is reduced by more than half making again English the superior language. Now what is scary is that all states would start to adopt this kind of law. I personally do not think so. We Spanish speakers are a drug and the others are dependent on the ecstasy of our language. Now I would be great to conduct a study since now to show the impact of this law in New Mexico linguistic dynamics.

heritage learners

I wanted to post a question that I had about the definition of heritage learners of a language; it was one that I asked for Wednesday's class, but we didn't get to discuss it. A couple people have already answered this, but I was wondering what the rest of you thought.

One of the basic requirements of being classified as a heritage learner is that the student must have some kind of personal connection with the language in question. Usually this means a cultural or ethnic background of which the language is a part. What about people who do not have the ethnic characteristics generally associated with the language, and also grew up as monolingual speakers of another language? Could these people be considered heritage speakers if people from the community in which they grew up (friends, classmates, etc.), spoke the language in question? Do any of you SHL TAs have students like this in your classes?

On Heritage Languages…

    All of us who grew up in the American public school system learned early on that Patrick Henry, in courageous defiance, uttered the phrase "Give me liberty or give me death". The context in which this speech was delivered was not without parallel to our current context. Of course, Henry delivered this line as part of a greater appeal to the Virginia government to join the cause for American revolution, and its legacy seems to permeate the very fabric of our existence. Before we are able to understand the concept of what could potentially be impediments thereto, the dogma of freedom and liberty are pushed upon us until we all feel the urge to chant call and response across the centuries with Mr. Henry himself. The problem with the liberal pursuit of freedom carried on and praised in the American cultural tradition by the likes of Thoreau, Steinbeck, Emerson, Whitman, Abbey and others is the failure to acknowledge the subjectivity of experience that comes with "freedom". It is curious the way we perceive things is rarely universal. What may be free to me (blogging contently on my Zimmerman library computer) is definitely not free to the guy who looks strikingly like my uncle, earning considerably less, but diligently completing his tasks sweeping the floor around the computer station. By the same token, the way I teach Spanish to the people who have grown up in similar circumstances to my own will necessarily look different than when someone else teaches Spanish to a general population class in SSL, or even if I myself teach Spanish in the SSL context.

    So where is this all going, you may ask (assuming you've made it this far). The parallel that can be drawn from this seemingly tangential aside is that Heritage language instruction was born out of the same circumstance. It was born out of the realization that what looked like a "good way" to learn a language in one context was not meeting the needs of a large population who had lived experience with the language in other contexts. In her latest publication, Kramsch calls for, "an ecologically oriented pedagogy that approaches language learning and language use not just as an instrumental activity for getting things done but as a subjective experience, linked to a speaker's position in space and history, and to his struggle for the control of social power and cultural memory". If we dissect such a statement, we realize that there are powerful implications. Language, in Kramsch's view is not adequately attended to by a "natural method" or a "communicative approach" because language and life are necessarily experiential. The language we use is a reflection of our existence. This is not something that is unique to SSL or SHL per se, but it is a discussion worth toying with for the purpose of my current blog.

When we've talked in class about who can be SHL vs. SSL teachers, and what qualitative differences exist between the two programs offered by our department, there is an important distinction to underscore. That distinction is not which program does better at attending to the type of pedagogy called for by Kramsch. I believe that both programs take great pride in trying to instill the spirit of Kramsch's goal into their instructors. The difference is a foundational philosophy. The field of SLA research can talk about "what we know" as a discipline and discuss patterns of language learning, metrics regarding common tendencies in language acquisition, and methods that have been fine tuned to enhance the intake/uptake/acquisition of conceptual language knowledge. I will be the last person you will hear downplay the importance of this type of research. I think that it informs language instruction universally, and can and should be incorporated into any method for teaching heritage languages. Where I find a deficiency in the SLA discipline for attending to Heritage language pedagogy is that it has generally regarded a language in the context of a code to be learned and mastered instead of a lived experience. It is comforting to know that the field of Pragmatics takes this lived experience of language as a point of departure and is beginning to make inroads in the SLA community at large. Unfortunately, however, it is not something we are seeing in the textbooks yet. (It is important to note that Heritage Language textbooks are generally not much better at attending to Pragmatics.)

The difference we see in SHL is that it takes for a point of departure the notion that language is an inextricable component of a person's existence. Indeed, language is the most formidable system we have to make meaning and communicate ideas beyond a basic sentimental/emotional level. As noted in Kramsch's citation, SHL pedagogy emphasizes the link in language to " a speaker's position in space and history, and his struggle for control of social power and cultural memory." We see this on a daily basis in SHL. When I first heard the term decolonization I was skeptical in that I viewed myself as a child of the Patrick Henry tradition, always having been free to think, read, write whatever it was that suited my family, community and heritage in the best interest of the collective. It turns out that this is not the case. It is amazing to me that subjects such as civil rights, Chicano history, New Mexico history and circumstances that lead to our becoming a state and designing our constitution the way we did have quickly been forgotten. Things as recently as the Tierra Amarilla courthouse raid in the 1960s have all but been forgotten by the New Mexico education system. Land grants, though they figure prominently in New Mexico's history, are not something highlighted in our history classes. Instead we get civil war battles at Glorieta, Billy the Kid, the Pueblo Revolt, and Oñate as topics we learn. The point to all this tirade, is not that we need to radically change the education system (perhaps we do, but not for the purposes of this blog) but rather that control of social power and cultural memory is linked to language in the most essential ways. Furthermore, the maintenance of this control is premeditated, measured, and comprehensive.

Indeed it is only through programs like SHL, only available at the University level, only available to those who were successful at mastering the tradition of liberty as preached by Patrick Henry, that people are even granted access to an alternate perspective. In my class this semester, only people who had taken Chicano studies knew who Cesar Chavez was, only two knew of Corky Gonzales and Reies Lopez Tijerina, and none of them knew that the national guard was called out in the 1960s to restore order in Tierra Amarilla. This is the reason why there needs to be a separate track. I have myriad concerns about what is being sacrificed to achieve this, but this is one of the few tools we have to attempt to mend the link between a birthright language and our collective subjectivity as "manitos". Our position in space and history remains a mystery because we have not demanded control of our cultural memory at an institutional level. Did we ever stop to ask ourselves what led to the differences (I don't even have to mention them because you know what they are if you grew up or spent enough time in Burque) between Rio Grande / Highland / Valley when compared to Albuquerque Academy / Sandia Prep / La Cueva? Probably not until you got to college, had become conversant in the rhetoric of the American revolution, and were already harboring ambitions of moving to that side of town and sending your kids to the latter kind of schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nf9ZbduiwkM&feature=related

Wow, I thought after our conversation in class today you guys might appreciate this. It is a bit old from 2008 but put in perspective some of the views out there.

Descolonizacion = Dualidad

Al parecer Nuevo México ha pasado por dos estados de colonización. Colonización por parte de los colonizadores españoles y colonización por parte del estado Norte Americano. Ahora la descolonización se da al intentar recuperar la lengua. ¿La pregunta es, descolonización de cual parte de esta sociedad hibrida? Al parecer esta descolonización también crea una inestabilidad lingüística cual afecta el estado presente de la lengua en el norte del estado. Todavía siento que existe una gran dualidad y un gran rechazo en establecer el español Nuevo Mexicano como HL.

Inductive grammar

After reading Damian's article, I felt very enlightened. I like how he outlines comprehensive input and how to approach grammatical points on page 21. This is an inductive approach, that seeks to find out what students know first, BEFORE introducing the grammatical point. Students are presented with the form and go through exercises where they make observations and compare what they see with what they already know. To be honest, I have never consciously approached grammar in this way, but it makes sense. I'm wondering what a sample lesson plan would look like that would be organized around this approach. This would be a very interesting and popular workshop for TAs.

¿¿¿Soy circunstancial o electivo???

Después de leer el artículo de Valdés acerca de los bilingües electivos o circunstanciales me puse a pensar que tan "circunstancial" es cuando se les "obliga" a ser bilingües, y se les obliga porque no olvidan su idioma materno y a su vez se le hace aprender el idioma dominante.¿Es valido este concepto de Valdés? Cuántos niños hay que se les obliga a interpretar para sus padres ellos no eligieron ser bilingües lo son porque han estudiado en este país y a la vez sólo se les habla español en casa, es circunstancia o es casi obligación. Y en realidad cuáles son los bilingües electivos, ¿los turistas, los intelectuales, los de la clase alta? Es un artículo muy bueno que explica las diferencias entre un grupo y otro pero en la vida real creo que estas divisiones van mucho más allá que estas dos categorías. Yo soy de los dos, pero también fui forzada a aprender el inglés si quería conseguir la ciudadanía o si no quería ser discriminada por mi lengua.

Census Issues

While the Census is a helpful tool, I think many people are afraid this is just another method of using socio-economic stats against certain minority/majority groups. As a result, I sometimes question the integrity of the information that is obtained through this method. While this is one of the best tools we currently have to obtain valuable information for research in sociolinguistic trends, we must be conscious of the validity of some of the information and factor that into our research.

An example of the negative attitudes toward the Census is the activist group in Roswell that was trying to boycott the Census and was advising immigrants that they should not participate. I think this paranoia should be taken seriously especially when trying to determine how long (i.e. how many generations) a family has been here. Another example is the income bracket they claim to be in which is sometimes either overestimated or underestimated for various reasons. I mention this because in a few articles we have read, these two items seem to be factors in how the investigator is concluding why certain groups retain the language.

I am not against the Census in any way, in fact I think it provides valuable information. However, I think we need to be realistic in just how many people may be hesitant to be truthful if they even fill out the forms at all. The hispanic population seems to be exponentially increasing but many of the members of this population go unaccounted due to fears of self-identifying for fear of deportation.

intergenerational transfer

Today's discussion about intergenerational language transfer was really interesting to me. The point was brought up that younger children generally speak less of the home language than their older siblings. I do not disagree or intend to refute this point, but it made me think of an interesting anecdote that I read recently. As part of another class I am going through several transcribed interviews from the famous NMCOSS project, and I came across someone who had two grandsons. This informant claimed that the reverse situation appeared to be happening in his or her family; the YOUNGER of the two boys was more fluent in Spanish than his older brother. This observation intrigued me, and especially after today's class.

Why is Spanish so important?

At the beginning of the semester, I posed the question of why everyone was making such a big deal about Spanish, while seemingly ignoring other minority languages in this country. I still maintain that in a perfect world each language would be highly valued and be put in the spotlight of linguistic literature and research to the same extent that Spanish has. However, I also understand that Spanish is native language of many citizens of this country, and this large population is probably the reason that Spanish is receiving so much attention. I also want to say that Spanish holds a special place in my heart as a native New Mexican. Even though I didn't learn the language from my parents, I still feel that it forms a core part of my identity, and I hope to pass it on to my children someday. I don't even know what I'm trying to say with this blog entry, but I guess it boils down to the fact that I am of two minds. On the one hand, Spanish is a treasure that definitely should not be forgotten or lost. On the other hand, I wish that other languages received the same amount of attention and value as Spanish. Maybe there are parts of the country where this plays out, and I hope so.

En fin...

I would like to elaborate further on the article by Bills and Vigil 1999. We have repeatedly read articles on language attitudes and language shifts. In the end, what is the conclusion? Spanish has fought to be maintained, yet we do not hear of other languages having this issue, or are we just not listening? For example, native U.S. languages exist but due to barriers that were built by the natives in order to protect and conserve the culture, prohibit us from having access or learning it. If others were permitted to learn the native language, how would this have changed or affected language variety in New Mexico? Would there have been more integration of languages? Would we be learning their language in schools? If no perseverance of maintaining Spanish in the U.S. was needed and the language was finally accepted and considered just as prestigious as English, would this fight of maintenance continue? Do you think it will ever be considered just as prestigious? Do you think language attitudes towards Spanish would change? We see the continuous influence of ‘Mexican Spanish’ and English in the US, what do you think will happen in 20 or 50 years? Furthermore, for the reason that the U.S. is home to more than one language and culture, I do not believe that one “mother tongue” exists. In my opinion, there is no ‘mother tongue’ expect when taken literally. We all speak the language our ‘mothers’ raised us with, including of course the influence of language contact in relation to where you were raised, therefore, in my opinion there is no official ‘mother tongue’. At last, when will there be in end to people having to fight for ‘their mother tongue’?

Spanish......

Una vez más me encuentro con el sentimiento contrariado de ver una variación del español la cual no conocía. Es un poco difícil para mí entender que se quiera etiquetar todo lo que se habla, sé que es en nombre de la "ciencia"; sin embargo, las relaciones entre estados, entre países, entre razas, entre humanos, etc siempre ha existido no importa qué lengua se hable. Para mí es más significativo ver cómo se han hecho esas relaciones, cómo se ha logrado la comunicación aun hablando distintos idiomas o dialectos. (No es un ataque aunque lo parezca) Sólo lo menciono porque para mí estos contactos de la lengua por sí solos son relevantes y poder apreciar que aun hablando un mismo español existan diferecias tan marcadas podemos comunicarnos y sobre todo podemos aprender de unos y otros.

On gender assignment

Can gender assignment be considered an analogical process?
I thought I should share the following which are two thought provoking articles on the role of intuition in gender assignment in Spanish:
Native speaker intuitions as a basis for determining noun gender rules in Spanish. by Diana Natalicio available at the Southwest Journal of Linguistics and the article: "Spanish Gender Assignment in an Analogical Framework" by David Eddington

Also, from our class discussion questions/comments : While it makes sense that terminal phonemes play a part in the assignment of gender to English-origin borrowings, I am surprised that the phonology of the words in other aspects apparently does not have much influence on assignment, especially in the case of similarly pronounced synonyms. It seems to me that a Spanish speaker who regularly says el aeropuerto might, in English, be primed to say el airport, since the words begin in a phonetically similar way. Similarly, someone who says la electricidad might say la electricity.

Medieval Linguistics

Damian has stated that those of us who are Spanish medievalists are some sort of linguists and I find this to be correct. While the linguistic transcriptions that are done now days are mostly from the spoken form to the written form the are those of us who still remain focusing on transcribing from old Spanish to modern Spanish. Those of us who have done transcriptions have focused on the transcription style from the University of Wisconsin Medieval Studies. Now, what we medievalists are missing is the actual phonology of the era. Personally I would love to have heard the way they pronounced the words and how they carried out their language but those times are gone and probably that sort of data will never be available. Medievalists always have to juggle words and styles, because all the scribes had their styles, in order to make sense of the literature. Sometimes we even have to transform ourselves into a person from that era. Manuscripts are extremely challenging but they expose every possible clue to the era, including the sociolinguist changes.

Late-bloomer

Although we weren't able to get to this in the class discussion. I still crave your comments. El article de Brown me impactó bastante. I feel like pronouncing nosotros and asina with the unique /s/ reduction that is so characteristic of these high frequent lexical items. If I did this, would it be a form of emblematic pronunciation, in reference to the parallel term “emblematic Spanish”? Quiero decir, no me críe hablando español, ni aprendí a hablar con un acento nuevo mexicano. Sin embargo, ahora que puedo hablar en español, platico con mis abuelos y con mi tío. Mientras más hablo con ellos, más me doy cuenta de que sí hablan al estilo nuevomexicano descrito por Brown. I know that some of you have mentioned that it could be offensive trying to imitate the dialect of a particular group, but would it be offensive for me to try and imitate the dialect of my own family members? I feel like I'm starting to pick up certain traits a bit late, pero mas vale tarde que nunca, que no.

Acuérdate que eres polvo...

Me encanta el próximo artículo que estamos leyendo para esta clase. Siendo del sur de Colorado, y siendo mis abuelos maternos de Taos, el lenguaje a que hacen referencia para mí es algo tangible, enredado en memorias y sentidos, índice de niñez que despierta al oír algunas de las palabras como cuerpo(blusa), túnico(vestido), y hasta "cuara" por la moneda estadounidense. Sin embargo, hay una cosa que siempre me ha molestado con respecto a los actitudes "orgánicas" hacia mi lengua madre. Lo que más me estorba es que diga la gente que hablamos el español de España, traído directamente a la Nueva México por los conquistadores, actitud que, aunque técnicamente correcta, resiste a ver a la situación en su totalidad. Otra asunto de la misma visión borrosa, aunque quizás más comprensible, es que la falta de conocimiento de la historia de la gente de nuestro pueblo invita interpretaciones y extrapolaciones sin bases históricos, y en unos casos no tan raros, meras invenciones. Este artículo, si bien se promulgara por las comunidades y se enseñara en las escuelas públicas de esta región, se comprobaría muy útil en el remediar de ambas quejas.
Para empezar, ya ni siquiera se usa el español en forma cualquiera como lingua franca entre los de mi generación. Cantamos rancheras, comemos frijoles y tortillas, y sin lugar a dudas tragamos tequila, pero el español como forma de comunicación auténtica entre los jóvenes (y ya menos jóvenes) de San Luis se ha desvanecido. Tuve que enfrentar a esa realidad cruda este verano al asistir a la reunión/aniversario de diez años de graduación de Centennial High School. Para conmemorar a nuestros compañeros de clase (eran tres) que habían fallecido desde que graduamos, firmamos marcos para sus respectivas familias y se los regalamos de parte de la clase, compartiendo allí mismo mensajes breves los que quisieran. Resulta que uno de los que fallecieron (que en paz descanse) fue amigo y vecino mío que murió poco después de que nos graduáramos en un choque automovilístico. Sin entrar en más historia, es relevante que mi amigo, se llamaba Juanito Rael a propósito, y yo hablábamos mucho en español y espanglish. Pues, cuando escribí mi mensaje en el marco, en español de costumbre, mis compañeras de clase me acusaron de "showing off" por el hecho de que escribí en español...muestra clarísima de que no sólo se ha muerto el idioma en los de mi generación, pero que la presión de no usarlo persiste. Además cabe mencionar que de los pocos compañeros de clase que tengo de descendencia anglo, ninguno estaba en la reunión. Es una realidad trágica que, en mi opinión, proviene de la falta de conocimiento de nuestra historia.

Compartiré más a continuación porque este sí que es un tema que me provoca mucho feeling.

View on Hiatus Resolution

I decided to post my questions on Matthew Alba’s article since even though I did not enjoy reading it, it provided some interesting information. First of all, I did not understand the importance of hiatus. Hiatus is defined as the occurrence of heterosyllabic adjacent vowels either at the word boundary (la-escuela) or at the syllable boundary (re-al) (251). The repeated example of ‘la escuela’ is not an occurrence that is particular of Spanish in my opinion. I think this happens in all languages. Researchers realize that hiatus occurs in many languages, but it is not tolerated, therefore resolution usually will occur. Would you agree with this claim, especially when I think examples such as wanna go, gonna go are a maintained reduced form and we can see that here reduction is done to simplify the expression. It is further stated that unreduced forms tend to be accessed/used more often than reduced forms. It is difficult for me to agree with this statement since I think the expressions as those mentioned above are high-frequency that should be or are accessed or used more often than the unreduced form. Therefore I thought this article should be categorized more of an informational article rather than actual research. I do not think resolution versus maintenance can be determined; it is simply the flow of speech.

On Silva Corvalan's last reading

Since we didn't get time to go through all of the questions last week, I thought I'd bring this one up to you all via our virtual round table:
Do we all agree with the author’s claim that “the hastening of changes in the direction of the regularization of paradigms, and the loss of one or more competing structures with closely related meanings is in any(*) way motivated by the bilingual’s need to lessen his cognitive load when having to communicate rather frequently in two or more languages…”?
(*)Just a side note: This “any” sounds deceptive to me in an affirmative sentence.

On combined classes or independent SHL

Since last class, I've been thinking about the ability of a non-local teacher to teach SHL classes. If a teacher is not local, is not fully familiar with the Spanish of a particular region or community even, how will he or she be able to discern the difference between a mistake and variation? Is there any way to account for this?

La luz por fin!!!!

Es la primera vez que después de leer un artículo termino entendiendo lo que leí. Este artículo de Clegg y Waltermire es en mi opinión muy claro y explica lo que están buscando y cómo hicieron su estudio. Además es un estudio interesante y relevante. Curiosamente en una clase de literatura se mencionaba los artículos y su género, y ahora ver que en inglés el artículo no define el género, pero que al usar estos sustantivos del inglés el hablante le asigna un artículo y con ello un género me surgen preguntas. Una de ellas sería ¿esta asignación de género se hace de manera automática? ¿cómo es que el cerebro decide que género es? En el artículo se habla de que la asignación puede ser por tres factores: biológico, sinónimico o por la terminación de la palabra. Es muy interesante ver cómo funciona el lenguaje y nosotros sin darnos cuenta alteramos o modificamos los sustantivos y logramos normalizarlos dentro del habla diaria. Este artículo sí me gustó!!! :)

Linguistic wave patterns: The ECG of linguistics

Well, I am going to try to explain my theory of linguistics as a sound wave. It seems that language has a perpetual motion effect that continues no matter what. Of course language is not a single wave but a multiplex set of waves that run parallel like a current. A single wave is composed of a mid point plateau, upper ascending, top climactic point, upper descending, plateau, lower descending, low climactic point, lower ascending, plateau an so on. The midpoint or where the plateaus happen is the points of change within one language. For example, if there is an extension of estar this would be marked as a plateau because it is a change to the established rule. The length of the wave segments marks the time it takes for the change to occur or the length of time it takes for the decline or uptake of a linguistic doing within the language. Now in the English language this same wave pattern happens and when something like codemixing happens the waves intermingle overlapping in the high and low climactic points. I think of this whole thing as the ECG of linguistics. Hopefully I can develop some kind of software where I can map speech. Hopefully this does not create a “so what” feeling but it is more a scientific approach that can actually be used in application.

Extensions, code switch, calques...

Throughout the semester we have read several different articles that sometimes seemed repetitive and subjective. However, as the semester progresses and we delve into the purpose behind the articles, I am able to understand better (than I did at the beginning of the semester) why the people who write these articles and do the research are so passionate about the work. I feel that there will always be some sort of personal interest in any type of research, but this is what drives investigators after all.

I am able to be less critical than I think I was at the beginning of the semester. I have been able to get valuable information from these articles for the classroom, and while I wish the articles were written for this audience, I understand the reason they are not. Perhaps more linguists will pay attention to the value of the information these articles contain and how that could transfer to the classroom or maybe even write a book or two like the one Potowski wrote about heritage learners. While I realize getting the research out in the Academia world is important, they are forgetting that the research they are doing could be making a greater difference if directed to a more complete audience.

SSL and SHL together

Wednesday's discussion about integrating SSL and SHL classes recalled an experience that I had in an elementary school Spanish class. It wasn't major or even necessarily negative, but you know how certain things stick in your mind better than others? Well, that's what happened to me in this case, and it is something that I've thought about every once in a while over the years. As a child, I had no idea that there was even a difference between SSL students and SHL students, because we were all taught together by one teacher who rotated around the school to the different grade levels during the week. I will be the first to say that I learned textbook Spanish and standard grammar; no mention was really made of dialectal differences, and I agree that it is something that would have been extremely useful in my future language development. The only difference I remember learning was in the pronunciation of the letter "y." We were taught that in some places this letter is pronounced like the "s" in "measure," but that only one person in the room should really use it, since she had family who spoke like that. I remember asking myself, even then, why the rest of us shouldn't use that pronunciation if we chose. I realize that the comment was innocently made, and that this was over ten years ago, but I think that students should be able to speak the way that makes them most comfortable. (Of course, academic language should be stressed in the classroom, but variation should not be discouraged.) That is why I am so glad that both SSL and SHL have recently made leaps and bounds in their teaching methodologies and philosophies.

Language Causing and Breaking New Rules

I now have a new perspective on code-switching. Before I thought that it was related to not knowing or being proficient in two languages. But after reading several articles, I agree with those that claim code-switching is a skill. I find it interesting to read articles that look more in depth on particular usage of verbs within code-switching, especially when the future of its usage is considered. Even though many can agree with code-switching being a proficient ability, it is still viewed as being used by people who are uneducated in the language. I am partial to this claim because from my experience and considering the people that I hear using it within my community have not been formally educated in the language. Yet without education, they are still able to code-switch and demonstrate their knowledge of the languages without grammatical violations. Furthermore, these people and their usage of the language or code-switch is what is being studied and attracts the educated. Another interesting factor is acknowledging that code-switching changes the grammatical rules of the language, as seen in Carmen Silva-Corvalan’s 1994 article. It is obvious therefore, that code-switch will continue to advance and change simultaneously with language causing and breaking new rules.

¿Y que...?

I sent this out as a question, but realized that it would be absurdly long to project out on the screen, so I'm going to post it here for everyone's perusal.

 

How much does a researcher's willingness to believe a given outcome influence whether or not that person finds it? And how much does another researcher's negative reaction to such a "found" outcome motivate the undertaking of research to question its validity? The reason I ask is because it seems that a lot of the articles we are reading are responses to assertions of corruption of language, lack of linguistic ability, and other similarly negative characteristics of the language of code mixers. The general theme I've been seeing is that the first quest is to show why the apparently extra-linguistically motivated conclusion is untrue and then to say that the phenomenon in question (we've seen lack of skill, grammatical convergence, and calques) is in effect, inconsequential. We seem to be saying, "see, it happens in monolingual varieties too, just in a different way." The effect that this produces in the audience (i.e. grad students subjecting themselves to amounts of this stuff the way undergrads drink) is the frustration that all we are doing is showing that the categorically heinous findings published previously are in fact, and can to be proven with empirical evidence, categorically heinous. I think that the non-linguists in the room are then stymied by an overwhelming sense of SO WHAT?!!! Even though the author who wrote the categorically heinous findings was well, heinous, it was still compelling enough to want to disprove. Right now the only thing I feel compelled to do is find some mind-numbing activity that will compensate for reading through all that technical language. Maybe I'm asking to have my cake and eat it too, but when it comes to many of these articles that disprove previous research, not only do I want them to be correct (which they have taken great pains to be) but I want to want to care.

Food for thought:

When analysing modeling, Otheguy offers calificar as an example of linguistic modeling: (3) Calificó a Carlos de incapaz de desempeñar ese cargo, (4) Carlos no es un hombre calificado para ese cargo, y (5) Carlos no califica para ese cargo. He points out that "speakers of general Spanish do not use calificar intransitively, as in (5)". He also lists saber as an example of linguistic modeling: (1) Mami, ¿cómo ese niño sabe a Eric?. It seems to me that these words differ still: While saber has changed lexically, its meaning encroaching on conocer, calificar (in 5) has changed grammatically. Do we have special labels for this?

Metaphorical application v semantic extension

Geee.. time really flies by in class[which is a good sign], so I'm going to share my question from the last class. Here goes...

Otheguy uses the examples (1) Mami, ¿cómo ese niño sabe a Eric? and (2) Papi, tú me prestas esa pluma y yo te la doy para atrás; please, please, préstamela y yo te la doy para atrás. He states: "The saber of (1) appears where speakers of general Spanish would almost certainly use conocer. It is said to be a semantic extension because, on the model of English know, the meaning of saber has been extended to areas that in unimpacted varieties are covered by conocer. The dar para atrás of (2) appears where speakers of general Spanish would almost certainly use devolver 'to return', and is said to be a loan translation or calque modeled on English give back." In his later examination of para atrás, he says that "Speakers of Spanish in the US could very well have gotten the idea from speakers of English that the concept of "behindness" in space could be applied metaphorically to the temporal notion of repetition." How is it exactly that a metaphorical application of para atrás differs from a semantic extension of saber?

Stereotypical language expectancy

How I understood the article of Cacoullos and Travis is the between the languages of English and Spanish the use of the yo form are significant in relation to each other. I believe that what makes it even more significant is the fact that bilingual relativity is increasing with the influx of more Spanish speaking persons into the areas. In my Spanish 101 course my students ask me why is it the same “Yo como as to como”. My response is that using como has the implication of using the yo form. Again we have the duality of languages by trying to translate and not ending up with a logical answer. To make my point I ask for them to translate Yo voy al parque. It makes sence in English “I go to the park” but if you try to translate voy al parque they always tend to say “go to the park”. Now trying to explain the trend of the use of yo in code-switching has to do with bilingual speech. Since yo is very useful in English to say I the same stereotypical expectancy is applied to the Spanish by use of a bilingual speaking person.

Tecnicismos

Después de leer el artículo me encontré con la no nueva idea que lo qué entiendo de los artículos es un porcentaje muy bajo, primero pensé acaso es el inglés así que compré un hermoso diccionario inglés-español que me ayuda, pero lo que descubro frecuentemente al leer los artículos que no es eso lo que me acontece, tristemente debo confesar es que la mayor parte está escritos en un idioma técnico el cual yo no entiendo, veo las gráficas leo la información busco en la red y al final descubro que en realidad al final de la lectura nunca descubro el para qué de todo el estudio. Sé que existe una diferencia entre alternancia de códigos, préstamos, y todas las variaciones entre nativo hablantes, bilingües, etc pero qué me dice eso, para mí cada persona hace su propia variación al hablar, ¿me estaré volviendo loca?, ¿¿no debo pensar tanto??En fin espero al final del semestre sentirme menos frustrada.....

The value of research

I think this article underscores the importance of empirical research. It's easy to fall into the trap of observing a phenomenon, such as code-switching, and conducting research with presuppositions (e.g. there's no grammar or there's a convergent/hybrid grammar, etc.). Torres Cacoullos and Travis also highlight the fact that whatever constraints we do, or do not, incorporate in an analysis (such as the cross-linguistic priming effect) can produce different results (23). This article is an example of taking previous research and looking at it from a different angle. By adding one more constraint to the variable analysis (cross-linguistic priming), they were able to draw conclusions that haven't been drawn before. This research stuff ain't so bad after all.

A cluster of amputated sentences...

Después de leer el artículo de Otheguy me di a la tarea de buscar anglicismos usados en la ciudad de México, es un horror, el español se mantiene sí pero la sombra constante de la deformación es latente. No es que no acepte los intercambios o la alternancia, pero considero que el mejor lugar para que estos sucedan sea en lugares que existe el contacto de lenguas. Sin embargo en ciudades que de alguna manera se consideran "puristas" con lo que a la lengua se refiere y se empieza a utilizar estos anglicismos me hace pensar que la influnencia del país vecino está amputando de alguna manera el español. Recuerdo el comentario que hizo Alex acerca de la alternancia y cómo veía este fenómeno en el pasado y ahora su opinión es diferente, y lo mismo me sucede a mí, ¿¿¿¿será que estoy americanizando a mi cultura y a mi idioma con anglicismos???? Bueno espero que no sea tan grave, después de todo el lenguaje debe ser híbrido qué no?

Estoy recordando para atrás

Mi actitud hacia préstamos, y como especifica aquí Ortheguy, hacia las traducciones de préstamos ha cambiado bastante a través de mi travesía por el aprendizaje del español. Recuerdo que durante la escuela secundaria, cuando empecé a aprender el español, pensaba que había una traducción directa para cada término inglés. No tenía conciencia de las variedades de la lengua española, ni me daba cuenta de que podría haber diferentes maneras de describir la misma cosa según la cultura—hasta que fui a vivir en Costa Rica y pasaba tiempo con hispanohablantes de diferentes países. Me fascinaban las diferencias culturales. Lo interesante es que cuando regresé a los EEUU, al principio, no consideraba el cambio de código ni el "conceptual modeling" (como "llamar para atrás") una de ésas diferencias culturales, sino un tipo de muleta que usaban los hablantes para poder comunicarse. Ahora no pienso así, pero no me extraña que mucha gente lo hace, porque yo lo hice. Ortheguy ha hecho una distinción entre la forma lingüística y el uso lingüístico de una manera única y deslumbrante. Me asombra lo importante que puede ser un término y los efectos que puede engendrar. La decisión de usar, por ejemplo, "pérdida de una lengua" versus "desactivación de palabras" o de escoger entre "loan translation" versus "conceptual modeling" tienen consecuencias que nunca esperaba. Cada término tiene su historia.

View on linguistics

With all the new terms we are learning it would be helpful to start a linguistic dictionary. I think I understand all the terms but many times I find myself confusing them. The terms extra, intra and inter sentential are a bit confusing. Actually many of the terms I think will have the same meaning for one idea. Or on the other hand, one term will have many meanings like the word code-switch. From the beginning of class to now we have learned different meanings of the term based mostly on peoples opinions, whether they agree with it or not. Linguistics seems like science, there is no true solution and if one is found it can be redone for new results. In addition, the results will continue to change due to people, beliefs and environments changing (just like science). Yet, this idea is what keeps it interesting, since people can create or have an idea about a topic, test it and give results based on their investigation.

Loan translations (Otheguy 1993)

Sometimes it takes a while for me to come up with discussion questions about the articles that we read for class, and other times it comes too easily. It seems that when I am not strictly "required" to come up with questions or comments, they simply spill out! Since I won't be contributing questions for Wednesday's class, I decided to post them here instead. :)

First of all, I must say that this article was very interesting, and it called to mind the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis of linguistic relativity, which says that a person's language affects (or at least influences) his or her conceptualization of the world. Otheguy seems to be making the opposite argument: that a person's conceptualization of the world affects or influences his or her language. So is it one or the other, or both (like a two-way street)?

Additionally, while I agree that cultural adaptation plays a role in the way language is used, I cannot completely disregard the idea of "word-for-word" translations. Why can't it both? If a translation of this kind exactly followed the word order of the donor language, the result would belong to neither language. Speakers who employ loan translations instinctively adapt them to their native syntactic structures and semantic devices, in order to avoid this problem. So, I still believe that the notions of "loan translations" and "word-for-word" translations are valid.

As a last question: Did Otheguy end by totally refuting the existence of loan translations, or not? Thanks for listening! :)

Mid-Term Personal Review

I know that this blog has to be about what we read and learn, but since the start of the class I have been in a personal dilemma where my prescriptive and descriptive saints and angels have been battling for understanding. I have gained understanding and to some point have created a tolerance to the Northern New Mexico register and dialect. Tolerance I prescribe to this feeling that I get when I listen to someone from northern New Mexico. I had lived in the border city of El Paso, TX for most of my life 18 years to be exact. South of the border I was always the "pocho" the guy who was a linguistic outcast. Then in my first year of college I thought if I am the outcast down south what would these people (I northern dialect speakers) be called south of the border. I guess this is why I still maintain a guard when I hear the dialect; it is my trigger. (Mid-Term Review)

Poplack

Hello all!

I finally made it onto the blog! This article was interesting and frustrating at the same time. After our discussion in class I realize that there are many descriptions for the alternation of language use and words. However, giving a phenomena a name does not solve the complexities that accompany it. I think back to the article we read last week by England and can relate to the Maya who question the purpose of research. I am not saying I am against research in regard to code switching, borrowing, etc. I just feel like at some point the information can become redundant and overstated. I realize the importance of the goal of the researcher, but it feels like we are defending something that happens naturally but that is sometimes influenced socially. In most of the articles we have read, the purpose of the research is somewhat influenced (inevitably) by the researcher's personal experiences or even political views. That this is observed in the research makes me think about how the presentation of the data is viewed by the critics who have negative feelings toward this phenomena. Are we really getting our message across or are we fueling more negative feelings toward the phenomena? This is just a thought...

El sitio de conflicto

En el artículo de Poplack, habla acerca del sitio de conflicto como el lugar donde dos sistemas de gramática no tienen concordancia o harmonía. Me parece bastante semejante al concepto de "aporia", una palabra griega que significa "obstáculo o dificultad". Derrida utiliza esta palabra para des-construir un argumento--donde está la aporia está un punto de descontrucción. Para los linguistas, que estudian las diferencias entre alternancia de código, préstamos, préstamos momentáneos, etc., el sitio de conflicto, o "aporia", es el punto de desconstrucción. Tienen que enfocarse en cada palabra, cada repair, cada artículo, o sea, cada punto de disonancia como un posible indicador de correct or incorrect code-switching. Ricardo nos preguntó si había un estudio que se ha basado en un corpus de code-switching y que (si no me equivoco) ha subrayado los sitios de conflicto más sobresalientes a través de comunidades bilingües. Aunque no he leído toda la literatura acerca de code-switching, me imagino que estas "aporias" o sitios de conflictos van a variar según la comunidad de hablantes. Creo que se podría componer un continuo de estas aporias. Cada estudio que las busca en un cierto contexto va agregando más ejemplos al continuo. No sería un cross-linguistic continuo (entre diferentes idiomas), sino un cross-dialectal continuo de codeswitching. No sé si esto tiene sentido, pero es bien fascinante.

Comments on Poplack and Chucoboy

I know I have already commented on our research project for this class, but the articles that we currently are reading I think provide useful information. Poplack seems to provide a well developed and detailed study in 1980 on code switching. This article also includes information about language attitudes that will be beneficial to our research project. The setting of the study is ideally what we are aiming for in our investigation. Pedraza’s, like myself, was from the community of interest and was permitted familiarity with the setting and participants. As stated, this allows entrance to local network situations and tape-recordings without interference. I am hoping that like Pedaza, we are able to carry out a “sociolinguistic interview” that is casual, undirected speech and administers detailed attitudes. Our study consists of four specific questions, which may seem more vernacular than intra-group, but with our advantage I am hoping to discuss concepts at an informal level. Towards the end of the article, Poplack lists contributions of extralinguistic factors. Many of these factors I believe are not relevant to our study, since we are only determining attitudes. In particular, the gender of the participant was considered, yet no explanation or analysis of why differences exist in the study were provided. Therefore, if gender was not a contributor to the project, why was it mentioned? I also find interesting that levels of classification exist, for example Spanish-dominant, bilingual, English-dominant or fluent and non-fluent bilinguals. I wonder if in our investigation we will be able to categorize levels of attitude (despises, somewhat despises, appreciates). In addition, I was shocked by the mention of the low socio-economic living condition that was provided in the article. I was unable to find correlation between the relevance or significance that it would bring to the study. Is this information necessary? Does this fact imply or determine the maintenance or loss of a language?

I also wanted to comment Jose’s linguistic passing blog. I agree with your terminology, and think that even Poplack created one of her own. For example, in the 1998 article she uses the term “vowel harmony” and gives an explanation for it. I am not sure whether this is legitimate or invented, but I like it.

A partir de today viva the codeswitching

Después de leer los artículos para hoy quedé con un dolor de cabeza; sin embargo, hay algo que de verdad me gustó y es saber que la alternancia de códigos es en verdad una hablidad que tienen los bilingües para comunicarse usando dos idiomas. Es importante esto porque en comunidades híbridas la identidad es una construcción de varios elementos que conforman al individuo, uno de estos elementos es su lenguaje. Si se habla de comunidad híbrida se entiende que su lengua también es una mezcla de dos o a veces más idiomas, de ahí la necesidad de usarlas para poder mantener su identidad completa. En este mundo globalizado es necesario entender que el lenguaje ha dejado de ser puro, y se ha vuelto una construcción socio-económica-política que intenta crear puentes de comunicación entre estas comunidades tan diversas.

Linguistic Passing

I do not know if there is such term as language passing, but if there is not I think that it should be incorporated as part of some kind of study. By what I am referring to as language passing might seem as code switching or loan words but I believe there is a more sociological aspect to the term that I am coining here. Language passing is the actual mutation of the vocabulary to be able to be incorporated into the syntax of another language for the sole purpose of being incorporated into an inner circle on the linguistic sphere. I may sound redundant but troca is the most obvious example. Now this particular word became modified from its mother language English to fit into another language Spanish. In order for this word to gain validity the slow process of assimilation took place by first incorporating a vowel so an article could be attached. Next, the constant use of the word made it possible for the passing of the term as a legitimate term able to be used by the people.

I get it

When I went to Spain I did not understand why would somebody call a computer an "ordenador" in Castellano from Spain as opposed to "computadora" in Mexican Castellano(I think this option would of made more sense, since the word is from the US and it is a American continent word). It is my thought that Spain has realized why they lost so much territory in the American continent to its English descendant opponents (now allies). When the conquerers of New Spain (Mexico) started to assimilate to the native language adopting nahuatl to create new words they actually started to develop a new identity. This new identity had climactic periods with both Mexican Revolutions. Now, by simply not adopting the new words for the new technology coming from the US, Spain and other countries counter a sublime strategy that may put them at risk for colonization (for example Puerto Rico) through language. Let us admit, creating new cool technology and cool new words to describe these objects makes for the English language to be vogue. But, if you cancel the english word and create your own to dissipate you cancel the threat.

Researcher and Researched

This week’s articles were interesting and helpful. There are many factors that need to be considered when conducting an investigation. Since I will be investigating for a project, I find the information relevant, even though it may be challenging to comprehend. Since I am familiar with the location of investigation, I think this will eliminate many preconceived notions about the community. In addition, by growing up in the community I can claim to belong to it, therefore relating with the members in a vernacular and ethnographic manner. Even though this setting is advantageous, I think challenges between researcher and researched will exist. By simply stating that an investigation is being conducted to a group that is considered subordinate, can immediately offset the relationship and create a power relationship in the interview setting. As an interviewer, it is essential that authority behavior is moderated to remove signs of superiority. The goal is not to speak for the community, but represent it through investigation and giving it a voice.

Presentation schedule...

3/3 and 3/8 - Daniel Abeyta (dabeyta@unm.edu)

3/10 - Abigail Feldman (afeldman@unm.edu)

3/22 - Cynthia Meléndrez (cmelen09@unm.edu)

3/24 - Alison Grochowski (agrochow@unm.edu)

3/29 - José Domínguez (jdomingu@unm.edu)

3/31 - Alison Grochowski (agrochow@unm.edu)

4/5 - José Domínguez (jdomingu@unm.edu)

4/7 - Ricardo Martínez (rmtz@unm.edu)

4/12 - Abigail Feldman (afeldman@unm.edu)

4/14 - Linda González (lgonzal7@unm.edu)

4/19 - N/A

4/21 - N/A

4/26 - Linda González (lgonzal7@unm.edu)

4/28 - Ricardo Martínez (rmtz@unm.edu)

Language in a Sphere

I have always thought that mans creation has a tie to everything and to anything and language is no exception. Sapir-Whorf theory of placing everything inside a sphere is an assertive way to explore language. If there is any reason for the overlapping of concepts like sociolinguistics, for example, is because of the making of this sphere. I see the Sapir-Whorf sphere as a composition of layers where the core is just made up of the concept that we are humans. Even though the language is dynamic all the changes take part on this enclosed sphere. The enabling factor that allows us to study this, what we call language is that of the overlapping of concepts that in some way have a constant variable. Every language, dialect, register etc. has a structure to which rules apply. It is the difference in rules that enables the ties of language.

socio qué!!!!

Esta lectura se me hizo muy ilustrativa he aprendido un poco más de lo que significa la lingüística y sus usos, confieso que esta materia no ha sido fácil y que es un constante desafío para no caer en el hábito de estar comparandola con la literatura. Me llama la atención los elementos que se toman en cuanta para estudiar el comportamiento de la lengua dentro de un contexto social. Uno de los que me tiene con una duda es ¿cómo un sustantivo es más sustantivo que otro? En el artículo de Corvalán menciona eso de igual manera menciona que un verbo puede tener mas verbalidad que otros, es fascinante ver que los investigadores toman en consideración aspectos que yo no veo, ni distingo, y como estos compartamientos influyen dentro de la inteacción/conversación entre hablantes. Me gustan los análisis que se hacen de gramática y sus variaciones y puedo entender el por qué de estas; sin embargo, sé que necesito poner más atención a escuchar, para tener una recepción "real" de cómo se usa el idioma al momento de hablarlo. Seguiré aprendiendo y por el momento sólo puedo decir que una de mis metas será el mantenimiento del español, como maestra/instructora de lengua creo que es una tarea relevante para preservar el uso del español dentro de los Estados Unidos y crear una actitud positiva ante este idioma tan extraordinario.

Sociolinguistics vs. Sociology of the language

Cuál es la diferencia entre ellos? Hay una diferencia? Esto es algo que me ha confundido por más de un año ahora. Me parecen similares, así que no entiendo por qué necesitan dos nombres distintos. Tal vez después de leer el resto de Silva-Corvalán las entenderé muy bien, pero quería poner esta pregunta en el universo para ver si alguien me las pueda explicar en términos sencillos. Gracias! :)

Language is like cooking.

Hola compañeros,
Sólo quería compartir con ustedes una metáfora que Kim Potowski nos presentó allá en UCLA. Estaba hablando sobre métodos de enseñar la escritura a nuestros queridos alumnos de herencia y ponía de relieve la importancia de darles a los estudiantes instrucciones bien detalladas. Además, subrayaba la necesidad de proveer rúbricas transparentes. Algunos dicen que tantas instrucciones, llenas de ejemplos, puede matar la creatividad de los alumnos. Potowski argumenta el contrario. Dice que Pablo Picasso tenía que aprender los métodos clásicos del arte antes de poder expresar su creatividad e ir más allá de las reglas. Ella propone que es lo mismo con los estudiantes (en este caso de lenguas heredadas, pero se aplica también a estudiantes de segundo idioma). Ellos quieren desarrollar sus habilidades en la redacción, pero necesitan buenas instrucciones tal como un adolescente de quince años necesita una receta con muchos detalles. Si se le dice a un muchacho de quince años que haga una cena de rigatoni, pues, los resultados son dudosos e infinitos. Sin embargo, si se le explica muy bien, tomando en cuenta todos los posibles errores, entonces le saldrá mucho mejor. Después de aprender como sofreír, hervir la pasta, picar las verduras y medir los ingredientes, entonces se puede utilizar estas herramientas para crear algo nuevo—y de ahí sale una creatividad tremenda.

Tolerancia!!!!

Los artículos de Hill y Achugar explicaron conceptos muy relevantes del uso del español dentro de los Estados Unidos, es increíble que ya hayamos olvidado que el mundo es una mezcla de razas, idiomas, ideas, etc. y de ahí la diversidad de culturas, identidades, de comuninades, etc. Dentro de las universidades aprendemos de religiones, de ciencia, de filosofía, de literatura, etc. y cada facultad es un microcosmos con un "idioma" propio de acuerdo a la asignatura, lo mismo sucede con las comunidades hispanas dentro de los Estados Unidos cada una de ellas tiene su propio idioma para comunicarse ya sea español, spanglish, bilinguismo, heteroglosias, etc no creo que se deba delimitar a estas comunidades ni se les deba etiquetar de inferiores por no ser monolingües. Dentro de las clases de español como segunda lengua intento acercar a los estudiantes al idioma pero además a la cultura de cada país, que aprendan sus diferencias y sus similitudes y así ellos puedan hacer conexiones con su propio país. Estas conexiones y relaciones es lo que nos lleva a ser tolerantes y aprender uno del otro no a excluir. Tal vez esta práctica debería llevarse a la arena política?? será posible??

Negative Language Stigmas

We have repeatedly seen from the articles that Spanish is tagged with a negative stigma, primarily due to its speakers being minorities. Yet minorities are the mayor growing population. Spanish is a language that will never cease even without the inflow of immigrants. If by miracle, the borders were blocked off to the extent that no new immigrants came to the U.S., would the negative stigma continue? Let's imagine that everyone learned and spoke English, would this bring an end to the fear of other languages becoming prestigious? Could other languages then be considered legitimate because they no longer were a threat? What would happen to Spanish? As we have seen, language and culture are connected; therefore, this cannot be flushed out of people unless they chose otherwise. You would think that since we live in such a diverse and progressive country, it would be acceptable to value other cultures and languages instead of mocking or justifying negative stigmas. I think it is normal for people to fear the unknown, but labeling other languages as disorderly or dangerous is just absurd.

El sentimentalismo

En Mejías et al. promueven que un actitud sentimental hacia el idioma como una indicación de una pérdida del idioma con la ausencia de los otros tres factores, y que se necesita otros modos de apoyo para poder mantener el idioma (Mejias and Anderson, 1988). Me pregunto cómo se comparan las actitudes entre este estudio y los estudiantes de UNM y qué estamos haciendo para promover o no promover los cuatro factores (comunicación, instrumentalismo, sentimentalismo y valor/lealtad al idioma). ¿Predomina el factor de sentimentalismo? ¿Creen que el sentimentalismo es algo negativo como lo pintan en Mejías et al.?

Castigo???

Buenas tardes a todos. Estoy más que molesta después de leer el artículo de MacGregor, creía que esas prácticas violentas pertenecían a un pasado muy lejano, veo que no es así. Estamos hablando de hace casi 20 años o 30 años cuando todavía se forzaba de manera violenta el uso del inglés. Hoy en día no se maneja de esa manera; sin embargo, si existe coacción de manera más "civilizada". Entiendo que si estamos en los Estados Unidos debemos aprender el idioma del país que habitamos, pero no entiendo la imposición política de este país por eliminar la "identidad". Anderson dice: "Language-of-state it might be, but it could not, in the nineteenth century, be the language of business, of the sciences, of the press, or of the literature, especially in a world in which these languages continuously interpenetrated one another" (78). Es exactamente la idea de diversidad los idiomas pueden crear puentes entre ellos y no tiene porque ser el inglés sólo el idioma dominante y creerse que es el único ni debe ser castrante de otros.

Language maintenance and loss: Another viewpoint

This class has been enjoyable, enlightening, and frustrating for me at times. While I acknowledge all points made in discussion as valid and important, I sometimes feel like I can't contribute personal stories and anecdotes in the same way as others. Again, I agree that it is important for any language (and especially Spanish in the case of this class) to be maintained as a way to preserve culture. But as a native-English speaker, I have never had to struggle to accomplish this goal. In short, I can sympathize, but not empathize 100% with those who do.

Once again I must talk about the general sociolinguistics class I took last semester, because one of the articles from that class is, I think, relevant when considered in the context of this class. It is well-known that English is the overwhelmingly dominant language in this country. Since so much emphasis is placed on the promotion of this language in the United States and globally, sometimes it is difficult to really remember that English is in fact a minority language in some areas of the world.

The article I want to briefly summarize brought this blaringly to light for me, and I think that is both eye-opening and ironic. In their 1987 article titled "The Philadelphia story in the Spanish Caribbean," Shana Poplack and David Sankoff examine a small community of native English-speakers who reside in the Dominican Republic. Their discussion basically concludes that the situation of English there is identical to that of Spanish here, excepting a continuous influx of language-maintaining immigrants. The language is being lost in the younger generations, despite their parents' best efforts to maintain it. While I in no way celebrate the loss of any language anywhere in the world, it was a "nice" change of pace to read that English does not occupy such a hegemonic position in all corners of the globe.

LEP or FEP

I found Norma Mendoza-Denton’s article very interesting and close to home. I grew up in the South Valley and attended schools similar to SJHS. I attended Rio Grande High School (RGHS) for a year and experienced living among gangs such as those discussed in the article. As a matter of fact, there were Sureña and Norteña gangs. The gangs present at RGHS were so many; it seemed only very few did not participate. There were rivalries which seemed to split the school in half. The article describes the differences in the members of the gangs as English vs. Spanish dominant. I remember it being obvious who belonged to what gang by simply speaking to them. Of course other factors were their attire and colors worn. Luckily my interest in education overcame interest in ever participating in gangs.
Not only were there such gangs similar to SJHS, RGHS also had LEP and FEP programs. I do not believe those programs compared to SJHS, in which disruptive students were placed in, it seemed to be mainly Spanish dominant speakers. Although I considered myself English dominant, I still had trouble in some classes. I remember telling my mom that I did not want to speak Spanish or be considered a Spanish speaker because then I would be put in “certain” classes. My mom would tell me to do whatever I had to, to get the best education. Even though she pushed English for a better education at school, she always made us speak to her in Spanish at home to preserve the language.
As we can see, it is a disadvantage to not get the best education. It is devastating for those students that have dreams of succeeding to be held back of their educational opportunities because they speak Spanish or are not English proficient. I know that this should not discourage people or should be viewed as a stepping stone, but when in high school and living among so much pressure can lead to dropping out. Learning and speaking English as a dominant language in these types of schools is practically seem as a survival method.

Digging Deeper

    One of my central concerns in our reading of various studies of "Southwest" or "Chicano" Spanish is what neat little packages are produced as a result of the studies. We have seen several efforts to catalogue phenomena present in a generalized language group, each of which produces useful and interesting results, even if never truly attending to the motivational complexity intrinsic in language employment. Missing from the discussion of language in the Southwest is its nature as contingent on a constructed identity. It has been mentioned in several articles that language is a signifier of identity; this has been done to this point without a significant exploration of this relational nature nor the implications of hybridity at more than a superficial level.

    It is important to understand the constructedness of identity in this target population-- which find themselves along the continuum of interstitiality between resistant and acquiescent to myriad hegemonic agents influential in identity formation. Chican@s situate themselves historically among colonizers and colonized, belonging to a class long steeped in both the winning and losing side of the struggle for cultural primacy. What makes the Chican@ unique, in that sense, is that unlike the Mexican mestizo in diaspora, the Chican@ finds himself caught between currents that transcend generational limits. Chican@ "authenticity" is always in question because it is not germane to any geospatial context. Whereas a characteristic of a Mexican can be attributed to "the way things are in Mexico" just the same way as the characteristic of an Anglo can be pawned off as "Americanness", the Chican@ as an identity is further complicated by the lack of geospatial authenticity that has plagued it since it was "from Mexico" and will continue to do so until it reasserts its primacy as an identity or folds itself into the proverbial hegemonic "melting pot".

    The question of geospatial authenticity may be less influential in the case of New Mexicans who reside in their "querencia", a term used affectionately to describe their homeland. To be certain, residence in a given place for longer than the scope of the collective memory is foundational in the establishment of "authenticity". However, there are myriad influences at work in hybridity, not the least of which concern economic status, sexuality, religion, gender, power, and relational identity in an area of contact between more than one culture. While these are all factors that are important in the formation of identity universally, the elusiveness of their definition is further exacerbated by the complex "mixed" nature of Chican@s as a mestizo people. The classic testament to this can be seen in definitions of what it means to be Chican@ as posited by Gloria Anzaldúa, Oscar "Zeta" Acosta, Sandra Cisneros, and Richard Rodriguez.

    I'll conclude my thought on the problematic nature of identity as it relates to language employment in Chican@ context, by acknowledging the limitations of what can be accomplished in a blog. My rumination over this topic is intended only to shed light on the superficiality and overgeneralization of clumping the "Southwest" into an ostensibly homogeneous group, not to assert some authority or even "new" perspective on this topic.

Proyectos Finales

¡Hola muchachos!

Siempre me cuesta pensar en los proyectos finales. Para mí, la parte más difícil es escoger un tema específico. Siempre tengo alguna idea nebulosa de lo que quiero hacer, pero no siempre logro formarla y hacerla más concreta. A pesar de mis batallas con los proyectos finales, sí he aprendido algo: cuando hablo con la gente sobre mis intereses, se me van formando las ideas. Por lo tanto, quería abrir un espacio donde podemos conversar sobre nuestros proyectos finales. Si les interesa, podemos hacer comentarios, preguntas, compartir recursos y contactos, etc. En cuanto a la clase de Damián, no tengo el sílabo a mano, pero se me hace que vamos a tener que hacer algún estudio linguístico (not sure how to put in the little diéresis over the "u") y quizá algo con el habla vernáculo por medio de entrevistas. ¿Me equivoco? No sé cómo se sienten ustedes, pero yo me siento un poquito intimidado porque nunca he hecho un estudio linguístico formal. A ver qué piensan.

Comments on "Ruling Ethnicity Out"

I agree that ethnicity should be ruled out. Especially when we have people of our own raza who are for English Only (i.e. Dennis Chavez as we learned). I also recognize why for some people it is difficult to not leave ethnicity out. As we have read in most of the articles, Spanish speakers are generalized as a subordinate group. Many of who are viewed as "retard immigrants... people who speak an unintelligible language... Spanish people who are looked upon as an inferior race...handicaps of bi-lingual Mexican children...operation wetback[s]...bad guys...portrayed as dark, foreign, and disturbingly 'alien'...ghettoized Puerto Ricans...," to name a few. Even though many negative ethnic-specified comments are made, I am not suggesting that these comments are coming from a particular ethnicity. But it is clearly understandable why our raza tends to slash back with similar ethnic-specified remarks. I agree that it is a "reverse-racist agenda" of us to come back with similar comments. I think an experiment should be conduced to measure the social and language attitudes of people who are in a controlled circumstance. It would be interesting to discover how attitudes are affected and if there is a significant difference in pedagogical philosophies, in addition to any changes to previous beliefs. As we can see, it is obvious that these attitudes still vividly exist and affect people's behavior and beliefs.

Mi español no es perfecto....

Primero un saludo y veamos cómo funciona este blog. Son casi tres semanas de clase y me encuentro con las diversas variaciones del español, y lo que es aun más interesante una variación única: el español de Nuevo México. En estas semanas hemos leidos artículos que abarcan las específicas características de esta varaiación; además, de los acontecimientos históricos, políticos y económicos que han tendido un impacto positivo como negativo en la lengua. Uno de estos impactos que llamó mi atención es el considerarse en estos años de modernidad al español como "low class", sé que esto viene de hace cientos de años y es un suceso que tal vez nunca termine, Pero en sí qué es "low class" clase baja ¿¿¿por qué, por las diferencias de color, de nivel económico, de castas, de qué??? El lenguaje es lo que permite a un ser humano comunicarse con otro ser humano, no debería existir categorías entre ellos. Además el lenguaje por medio de la palabra de otorga una identidad y te crea una cultura, que te identifica. Este proceso debe ser carente de etiquetas debido a que cada comunidad tiene su propia forma de comunircarse entre ellos. El español chicano, novo mexicano, pachuco, mexicoamericano y hasta el spanglish son variaciones de una lengua general que tiene cientos de años de existencia, lo mismo ocurre con el inglés y no veo que este sufra de discriminación.
El mantenimiento del español en el estado de Nuevo México es un gran esfuerzo por preservar la cultura e identidad y creo que no sólo se debe motivar sino inlcuso ayudar a que se mantenga no sólo en NM sino en todos los lugares donde se hable el español.

Rule Ethnicity Out

I feel like I have to blog about this because it left me feeling very uneasy after class today. I think that we have to be careful to give due regard to objectivity in our class discussions. In the conversation regarding the teaching of ESL to the Spanish-speaking population, the assertion was made that anglo-saxon ESL teachers were more likely to carry an assimilation agenda. I feel like this assertion is not only impossible to prove, but it is a social attitude that misses the point of what we are trying to study at the University. I maintain and would like to strongly emphasize that ethnicity as an isolated variable has no bearing on an instructor's pedagogical philosophy. That kind of statement leaves our scholarly effort vulnerable to myriad criticisms, not the least of which is carrying a reverse-racist agenda ourselves. So what do we do? I think we can say anecdotally that among a population sector in a given location there are palpable social attitudes that manifest themselves in the classroom in the form of an assimilation agenda. But we have to focus on the fact that they are social and language attitudes that are born of a person's life experience, not of their ethnicity that decides the kind of agenda / pedagogical philosophy carried by an instructor. In other words, it is not the instructor's ethnicity, but rather the context in which they were raised and educated that leads to their social and language attitudes. If we could create an experiment that controlled for the social attitudes that are manifest in language and its instruction, I am very confident that we would find no significant difference in the pedagogical philosophies of ESL instructors when categorized solely on ethnic terms.

Response to "Mexican vs. Chicano Spanish"

In the interest of full disclosure: I was born and raised Chicano, for as much and as little as that entails.

I see a couple of factors that contribute to the problems you are discussing in your blog: 1) The problematic effect of the term "Chicano" applied to a language. 2) A classic case of a social attitude carrying over into the perception of something that should be neutral, in this case language. The effect created by these two problems is that our ability to find valuable extrapolations from this article is greatly reduced. These articles should be useful to us in establishing trends and being able to look for pedagogical ramifications, but the application of such a broadly defined term like Chicano to this data set makes it so diverse that few useful extrapolations can be made from it. Likewise, the introduction of social attitudes into the analysis of language trends complicates the picture to the point where the most you can extract from the data are statements regarding the attitudes themselves.

The definition of the term Chicano is among the most problematic that I have wrestled with. Not only because there is no consensus on the exact parameters of what constitutes a Chicano, but also because it is a term that originated as a form of resistance among a subordinated population. As a result it is a term that has been scorned by both the population being resisted against and by those of the same subordinated population who disagree, for myriad reasons I won't try to document, with at least some component of the resistance of Chicanos. The problematic nature of the term Chicano is exemplified in the readings you reference in this blog. Rosaura Sanchez is very liberal with her use of the term, applying it essentially to all Mexican-Americans who were born north of the border. In contrast, Valdes uses a variety of labels for the same population and makes only indirect reference to Chicanos. I think this leads to a blurring of the lines defining who is saying what about whom, and the intentions/connotations carried therein. In class, Damián expressed that, in his perception, whosoever shall self-identify as Chicano is consequently and necessarily Chicano. This is more restrictive than Sanchez's application of the term, but still posits no qualitative characteristics uniform to the Chicano population other than their own desire to be called Chicano. Consequently, the utility of arguing language to be "Chicano" when founded on such a nondescript definition of that term, as in Sanchez's article, is negligible at best, and probably goes as far as counterproductive.

The blog "Mexican vs. Chicano Spanish" states, "I have met many Mexican Americans that cringe when they hear Chicano Spanish, even more so if they are classified or labeled in the "category", and will often say 'no hables como un Chicano'." This is a classic example of a social attitude manifested in a language attitude. The act of cringing when another person talks is a judgment behavior regarding their language. However, as we see in our linguistic studies, language should be seen as a value neutral means of expression. No dialect of a language is worth more than another. A person's reality is communicated through their language. Differences in speech (other than those attributable to developmental differences) usually reflect reality differences. When someone says don't speak like a Chicano, the logical question to ask is, why not? What is implied is that it being Chicano is inferior to being Mexican. Whether you agree with the implication or not, it is easy to see that this is a situation where the judgment of the Chicano person is more important than the judgment of language. In my opinion, this judgment of language provides nothing to the linguistic picture of Southwest Spanish other than to emphasize the compounded discrimination faced by heritage language learners in their effort to learn the language that belongs to them every bit as much as it belongs to a native speaker from any Spanish-speaking nation.

In my opinion, the value of Sanchez's article is diminished by such a nondescript and problematic term for her language set. Doing so doubly plagues her article. On the one hand it leaves the data set broad to the point that few concrete extrapolations can be made from it, and on the other it invites all of the scrutiny that has been independently extended to the term Chicano. It would seem that only in the case of substantial payoff would one invite such a problematic term into their research.