Spanish Heritage Speakers’ Perspectives sobre el español, inglés, y Spanglish: A Mixed-Methods Study
Author ORCID Identifier
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9275-1949
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Sociolinguistics
Location
MBSC Omaha Room 304
Start Date
17-10-2024 2:00 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 2:30 PM
Abstract
Sometimes defined as US Spanish or the combination of Spanish-English (Fuller & Leeman, 2020), Spanglish is a controversial term since certain institutions (RAE, 2014) have assigned it pejorative connotations. Although academic and larger societal attitudes towards Spanglish are known (e.g., Otheguy & Stern, 2011; Zentella, 2016), the literature lacks information about how Spanish heritage speakers (SHS) perceive it compared to standardized uses of Spanish and English.
Taking this knowledge gap into consideration, the present study explores 38 SHS’ attitudes (enrolled in an undergraduate SHS class at the time of study) towards Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Participants first completed a matched-guise test that included Spanish, English, and Spanglish oral guises by two SHS. Participants rated the guises on 6-point semantic differential scales: Uneducated-Educated, Unintelligent-Intelligent, Lower class-Upper class, Non-US citizen-US citizen, Ugly-Beautiful, and Native Spanish speaker-Native English speaker. Then, participants answered four explicit open-ended questions to express their views on the use of these three language practices. This mixed-methods study considers four independent predictors: previous SHS instruction, linguistic profile, birth country, and SES.
Statistical analyses in the matched-guise test (factor analysis and ordinal regressions) indicate that Spanglish is significantly more associated with speakers of lower SES by US born participants, while Spanish is not considered as pertaining to the US. However, no statistical differences are observed for previous SHS instruction and linguistic profile. Regarding the explicit questions, a bottom-up thematic analysis revealed that Spanish in the US is mainly associated with having a Latin-American heritage and community belonging. Codeswitching or Spanglish is mainly perceived as normal, positive, and as an exposure-related practice despite less common negative perspectives are also present.
Henceforth, this paper suggests that, although explicit data might not show a trend of negative attitudes towards Spanish and Spanglish in the US per se, implicit data reveal the influence of hegemonic US language ideologies regardless, for instance, of previous SHS instruction. This indicates the necessity to explicitly acknowledge and revert negative linguistic ideologies in the classroom and encourage the use of varying linguistic practices by professors, so that non-standard forms are destigmatized, validated, and respected (Burgo, 2021; McEvoy, 2017).
Spanish Heritage Speakers’ Perspectives sobre el español, inglés, y Spanglish: A Mixed-Methods Study
MBSC Omaha Room 304
Sometimes defined as US Spanish or the combination of Spanish-English (Fuller & Leeman, 2020), Spanglish is a controversial term since certain institutions (RAE, 2014) have assigned it pejorative connotations. Although academic and larger societal attitudes towards Spanglish are known (e.g., Otheguy & Stern, 2011; Zentella, 2016), the literature lacks information about how Spanish heritage speakers (SHS) perceive it compared to standardized uses of Spanish and English.
Taking this knowledge gap into consideration, the present study explores 38 SHS’ attitudes (enrolled in an undergraduate SHS class at the time of study) towards Spanish, English, and Spanglish. Participants first completed a matched-guise test that included Spanish, English, and Spanglish oral guises by two SHS. Participants rated the guises on 6-point semantic differential scales: Uneducated-Educated, Unintelligent-Intelligent, Lower class-Upper class, Non-US citizen-US citizen, Ugly-Beautiful, and Native Spanish speaker-Native English speaker. Then, participants answered four explicit open-ended questions to express their views on the use of these three language practices. This mixed-methods study considers four independent predictors: previous SHS instruction, linguistic profile, birth country, and SES.
Statistical analyses in the matched-guise test (factor analysis and ordinal regressions) indicate that Spanglish is significantly more associated with speakers of lower SES by US born participants, while Spanish is not considered as pertaining to the US. However, no statistical differences are observed for previous SHS instruction and linguistic profile. Regarding the explicit questions, a bottom-up thematic analysis revealed that Spanish in the US is mainly associated with having a Latin-American heritage and community belonging. Codeswitching or Spanglish is mainly perceived as normal, positive, and as an exposure-related practice despite less common negative perspectives are also present.
Henceforth, this paper suggests that, although explicit data might not show a trend of negative attitudes towards Spanish and Spanglish in the US per se, implicit data reveal the influence of hegemonic US language ideologies regardless, for instance, of previous SHS instruction. This indicates the necessity to explicitly acknowledge and revert negative linguistic ideologies in the classroom and encourage the use of varying linguistic practices by professors, so that non-standard forms are destigmatized, validated, and respected (Burgo, 2021; McEvoy, 2017).