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.
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It's cool that you are looking at the different articles and synthesizing them in a way that is relevant to your final project. I wonder if the proficiency of certain participants will influence their attitude toward the Spanish language. In relation to the relevance of social status, it seems like there is a pattern in the articles we read. Silva-Corvalan and Rosaura Sanchez also pointed out that lower income communities tend to maintain the Spanish language more due to the wave of immigrants that come to this country and need a support system. Often times the unifying factor for these people is their language. I don't know how directly it influences language maintenance, but I believe that context (geographic, socio-economic, cultural) has pretty heavy influence.
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