A new look at language choice and accommodation in U.S. Spanish-English bilingual service encounters
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Víctor Fernández-Mallat
Víctor Fernández-Mallat is currently Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at Georgetown University. His research interests include Spanish sociolinguistics, Spanish and its speakers in the United States, dialectal contact, and address forms in the Spanish-speaking world. His work has been published in the
Journal of Pragmatics; International Journal of the Sociology of Language; Sociolinguistic Studies; Open Linguistics; Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics; inter alia.
,
Linxi Zhang
Linxi Zhang is a sixth-year PhD candidate of Spanish Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research interests include Spanish phonetics and phonology, bilingualism and multilingualism, third language acquisition, and Spanish sociolinguistics. She has published a research article and a media review in
Hispania as well as two book chapters on language acquisition and multilingualism in edited volumes by John Benjamins and Wiley.Matt Dearstyne has a Masters degree in Spanish Linguistics from Georgetown University. His research interests include sociophonetics and dialectal contact, and he has published articles about phonetic and morphosyntactic variation in Costa Rican Spanish in
Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics and Cadernos de Linguística . He is currently a Data Analyst at the University of Washington.
Abstract
The study of service encounters in bilingual communities offers opportunities to gain insight into the factors that influence language choice and accommodation in these interactions and the ways that language may be used to build community. Previous work on bilingual service encounters has found that age, gender, speech turn, and customer ethnicity may all contribute to service providers’ choice of one language over another. This study reexamines language choice and accommodation in Spanish-English service encounters by observing the language use of 96 service providers in 35 Latino-owned restaurants of the Washington metropolitan area. Using data from service encounters between bilingual service providers and Latino and white customers, we explore the extent to which the factors identified in previous studies are relevant in this region. Additionally, we explore whether the increasingly polarized political climate in the United States has impacted language use. We argue that while customer ethnicity is the main deciding factor to start an interaction, service providers always accommodate to customer language subsequently. This demonstrates the importance of both language as a community builder – even in the face of social pressures that sanction the use of Spanish in public spaces – and the power differential that exists between workers and customers in determining language use.
Funding source: Georgetown University
About the authors
Víctor Fernández-Mallat is currently Assistant Professor of Spanish Linguistics at Georgetown University. His research interests include Spanish sociolinguistics, Spanish and its speakers in the United States, dialectal contact, and address forms in the Spanish-speaking world. His work has been published in the Journal of Pragmatics; International Journal of the Sociology of Language; Sociolinguistic Studies; Open Linguistics; Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics; inter alia.
Linxi Zhang is a sixth-year PhD candidate of Spanish Linguistics at Georgetown University. Her research interests include Spanish phonetics and phonology, bilingualism and multilingualism, third language acquisition, and Spanish sociolinguistics. She has published a research article and a media review in Hispania as well as two book chapters on language acquisition and multilingualism in edited volumes by John Benjamins and Wiley.
Matt Dearstyne has a Masters degree in Spanish Linguistics from Georgetown University. His research interests include sociophonetics and dialectal contact, and he has published articles about phonetic and morphosyntactic variation in Costa Rican Spanish in Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics and Cadernos de Linguística. He is currently a Data Analyst at the University of Washington.
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by a Competitive Grant in Aid from Georgetown University’s Main Campus Research office. We are grateful to the interview participants for sharing their experiences and insights with us. We would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who provided insightful feedback and suggestions on an earlier version of this article. Any remaining errors are ours alone.
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© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Doing leadership in style: Pragmatic markers in New Zealand workplace interaction
- Towards an extended notion of Common Ground in aphasiology
- A new look at language choice and accommodation in U.S. Spanish-English bilingual service encounters
- Forum
- On commitment to untruthful implicatures
- Book Reviews
- Thora Tenbrink: Cognitive discourse analysis: an introduction
- Helen Spencer-Oatey and Dániel Z. Kádár: Intercultural Politeness: Managing Relations Across Cultures
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- Doing leadership in style: Pragmatic markers in New Zealand workplace interaction
- Towards an extended notion of Common Ground in aphasiology
- A new look at language choice and accommodation in U.S. Spanish-English bilingual service encounters
- Forum
- On commitment to untruthful implicatures
- Book Reviews
- Thora Tenbrink: Cognitive discourse analysis: an introduction
- Helen Spencer-Oatey and Dániel Z. Kádár: Intercultural Politeness: Managing Relations Across Cultures
