El Spanglish, le franglais, and popular music: Not all major translanguaging varieties exist equally
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Contact linguistics
Location
MBSC Council Room 306
Start Date
17-10-2024 1:30 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 2:00 PM
Abstract
Two major linguistic varieties exist as major vehicles of communication in bilingual mode as code-switching and translanguaging due to language contact: Spanglish and Franglais. The former originated from Spanish and English, spoken for centuries in places like New Mexico, more recently in cities like New York and Los Angeles, and now even in rural settings where large numbers of Spanish speakers work in agriculture. The latter originated from French and English, spoken for at least 150 years in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, in Canada, in northern Maine in the US, and also spoken in France. How are both varieties regarded? Translanguaging and code-switching are important markers of identity (Richards & Wilson 2019; Beeharilal 2020) for the large speech communities who regularly communicate using these bilingal modes, but it is also true that the speakers themselves stigmatize their communicative practices (Sayer, 2008). Popular music is a way to measure the degree of acceptability of language mixing. Mixing French and English is frequent in French songs, enjoying high levels of popularity, given how often they are played in radio stations, their number of Spotify followers, the number of views of their music videos on YouTube, and the support of major record labels. Songs in Spanglish enjoy much less support from the media, with most bands and singers being independent and underground, without the backing of any major record labels. In this study, 50 songs in Spanglish will be compared against 50 songs in Franglais, using number of views on YouTube, the like/dislike ratio of these videos on that website, their number of Spotify plays and followers, and whether each singer or band is backed by a major record label, to determine levels of acceptability of the language mixing present in the songs. Preliminary results indicate that music in Spanglish does not enjoy the wide acceptance that music in Franglais has due to a number of reasons, mostly related to the stigmatization not of the linguistic practice of translanguaging and code-switching, but because the race of the performers seems less alienating in the case of Franglais musicians, and more for Spanglish ones, which corresponds to the acceptance of Franglais in Canada, and the stigmatization of Spanglish in the US
Keywords: Language contact and mixing, linguistic attitudes, identity, code-switching, translanguaging, Spanglish, Franglais, bilingualism, raciolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, popular music
PDF of abstract
El Spanglish, le franglais, and popular music: Not all major translanguaging varieties exist equally
MBSC Council Room 306
Two major linguistic varieties exist as major vehicles of communication in bilingual mode as code-switching and translanguaging due to language contact: Spanglish and Franglais. The former originated from Spanish and English, spoken for centuries in places like New Mexico, more recently in cities like New York and Los Angeles, and now even in rural settings where large numbers of Spanish speakers work in agriculture. The latter originated from French and English, spoken for at least 150 years in Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, in Canada, in northern Maine in the US, and also spoken in France. How are both varieties regarded? Translanguaging and code-switching are important markers of identity (Richards & Wilson 2019; Beeharilal 2020) for the large speech communities who regularly communicate using these bilingal modes, but it is also true that the speakers themselves stigmatize their communicative practices (Sayer, 2008). Popular music is a way to measure the degree of acceptability of language mixing. Mixing French and English is frequent in French songs, enjoying high levels of popularity, given how often they are played in radio stations, their number of Spotify followers, the number of views of their music videos on YouTube, and the support of major record labels. Songs in Spanglish enjoy much less support from the media, with most bands and singers being independent and underground, without the backing of any major record labels. In this study, 50 songs in Spanglish will be compared against 50 songs in Franglais, using number of views on YouTube, the like/dislike ratio of these videos on that website, their number of Spotify plays and followers, and whether each singer or band is backed by a major record label, to determine levels of acceptability of the language mixing present in the songs. Preliminary results indicate that music in Spanglish does not enjoy the wide acceptance that music in Franglais has due to a number of reasons, mostly related to the stigmatization not of the linguistic practice of translanguaging and code-switching, but because the race of the performers seems less alienating in the case of Franglais musicians, and more for Spanglish ones, which corresponds to the acceptance of Franglais in Canada, and the stigmatization of Spanglish in the US
Keywords: Language contact and mixing, linguistic attitudes, identity, code-switching, translanguaging, Spanglish, Franglais, bilingualism, raciolinguistics, ethnolinguistics, popular music