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9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language

A study of discourse particles in academic and non-academic registers
  • Ana Sánchez Muñoz
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Spanish in Contact
This chapter is in the book Spanish in Contact

Abstract

This paper examines the style and register variation in heritage language speakers of Spanish at the college level, specifically, the use of discourse markers across situations. Of particular interest in this study is the analysis of the markercomo ‘like’, which seems to be spreading in the same way as the markerlike in American English (Sankoff et al. 1997), adopting some of its functions thatcomo has never been previously reported to have in the Spanish literature. The results of this study show that the choice of discourse markers, their distribution, and relative frequency varies across registers. This indicates that bilinguals understand the difference among registers in their non-dominant language and the fact that academic language is characterized by a variety of features not present in informal interactions.2

Abstract

This paper examines the style and register variation in heritage language speakers of Spanish at the college level, specifically, the use of discourse markers across situations. Of particular interest in this study is the analysis of the markercomo ‘like’, which seems to be spreading in the same way as the markerlike in American English (Sankoff et al. 1997), adopting some of its functions thatcomo has never been previously reported to have in the Spanish literature. The results of this study show that the choice of discourse markers, their distribution, and relative frequency varies across registers. This indicates that bilinguals understand the difference among registers in their non-dominant language and the fact that academic language is characterized by a variety of features not present in informal interactions.2

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction ix
  4. Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
  5. 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
  6. 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
  7. 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
  8. Part II. Education and policy issues
  9. 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
  10. 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
  11. 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
  12. 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
  13. Part III. Pragmatics and contact
  14. 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
  15. 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
  16. 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
  17. 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
  18. 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
  19. Part IV. Variation and contact
  20. 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
  21. 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
  22. 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
  23. 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
  24. 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
  25. 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
  26. 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
  27. Part V. Bozal Spanish
  28. 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
  29. 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
  30. Index 395
https://doi.org/10.1075/impact.22.13san

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction ix
  4. Part I. Heritage Spanish in the United States
  5. 1. Subjects in early dual language development 3
  6. 2. Interpreting mood distinctions in Spanish as a heritage language 23
  7. 3. Anglicismos en el léxico disponible de los adolescentes hispanos de Chicago 41
  8. Part II. Education and policy issues
  9. 4. Teaching Spanish in the U.S. 61
  10. 5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá 81
  11. 6. Language attitudes and the lexical de-Castilianization of Valencian 101
  12. 7. Are Galicians bound to diglossia? 119
  13. Part III. Pragmatics and contact
  14. 8. Addressing peers in a Spanish-English bilingual classroom 135
  15. 9. Style variation in Spanish as a heritage language 153
  16. 10. “Baby I'm Sorry, te juro, I'm Sorry” 173
  17. 11. Cross-linguistic influence of the Cuzco Quechua epistemic system on Andean Spanish 191
  18. 12. La negación en la frontera domínico-haitiana 211
  19. Part IV. Variation and contact
  20. 13. On the development of contact varieties 237
  21. 14. Linguistic and social predictors of copula use in Galician Spanish 253
  22. 15. Apuntes preliminares sobre el contacto lingüístico y dialectal en el uso pronominal del español en Nueva York 275
  23. 16. Is the past really the past in narrative discourse? 297
  24. 17. The impact of linguistic constraints on the expression of futurity in the Spanish of New York Colombians 311
  25. 18. Quantitative evidence for contact-induced accommodation 329
  26. 19. Está muy diferente a como era antes 345
  27. Part V. Bozal Spanish
  28. 20. Where and how does bozal Spanish survive? 359
  29. 21. The appearance and use of bozal language in Cuban and Brazilian neo-African literature 377
  30. Index 395
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