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5. The politics of English and Spanish aquí y allá

  • Lourdes Torres
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Spanish in Contact
This chapter is in the book Spanish in Contact

Abstract

Discussions of Puerto Rican language practices are inextricably tied to issues of nationalism and political loyalties both in Puerto Rico and the United States. The linguistic behavior and the language ideologies of island and mainland Puerto Ricans are often presented in polarized ways; island Puerto Ricans are defined as fervently loyal to Spanish and mostly uninterested in speaking English and mainland Puerto Ricans are presented as English dominant and unable to communicate in Spanish. A more nuanced analysis suggests that a greater degree of bilingualism exists in both contexts. Recent proposals that seek to promote bilingualism in both settings provide promise for increasing the range of Puerto Rican bilingualism both stateside and on the island.

Abstract

Discussions of Puerto Rican language practices are inextricably tied to issues of nationalism and political loyalties both in Puerto Rico and the United States. The linguistic behavior and the language ideologies of island and mainland Puerto Ricans are often presented in polarized ways; island Puerto Ricans are defined as fervently loyal to Spanish and mostly uninterested in speaking English and mainland Puerto Ricans are presented as English dominant and unable to communicate in Spanish. A more nuanced analysis suggests that a greater degree of bilingualism exists in both contexts. Recent proposals that seek to promote bilingualism in both settings provide promise for increasing the range of Puerto Rican bilingualism both stateside and on the island.

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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