Introduction

Nowadays, the Chicano English dialect is considered as a native language. This dialect has passed from generation to generation. The definition of Chicano stands for people who live in the United States and have origins from Mexican culture; they are regarded as Chicanos. They can use words from Spanish because of the influence from it, but not all of them speak that language.

This essay will be focused on this type of dialect: The Chicano English. First of all, it starts with the topic “The History of Mexican American Language” that consists on how this dialect became part from a region. The topic even explains to whom we refer as a Chicano speaker. Also, during the development of this topic, it is going to described how the phonological and syntactic variables are used by them.

To continue with the essay, the next topic is “Linguistic Problems as Dirty Words”. People can sometimes being in a disagreement with some words from the Chicano dialect, so that they degrade it. Basically, this topic is going to explain this linguistic problem.

The third topic is the use of Code-switching in the Chicano English.  It is not truth that they commonly mix many Spanish words in their native language.

Before finishing this essay the team, in the Methodology and results’ head, is going to share some polls about the public view of the Chicano dialect.

Finally, the conclusions with respect to the topic The Chicano English will be bestowed to the reader to share our opinion about it. 

-The history of Mexican American Language (Chicano English)-

From the contact between Mexican Spanish and English, now Chicano English has been developed as an independent and systematic language that can count itself like an original language.

Chicano English as a language is the product of two major relexifications that took place in the history of Mexico over the past 500 years. In order to understand the origin of Chicano English it is important to know the history of language contact and colonization in Mexico.

The first major relexification occurred at the time of the Spanish Conquest of Mexico where a variety of Uto-Aztecan languages were spoken. The predominant language of central Mexico of these Uto-Aztecan languages was the Nahuatl. After the destruction of the Aztec Empire by the Spanish and during the time of colonial rule, Mexicans learned the Spanish language in the context of their own indigenous languages. This is a very important fact to consider as this applies to the development of Chicano English.

Mexico would have had the territory, now known as the Southwestern United States, if it had not lost the war with the United States of America. In 1848, after the war, Mexico was forced to cede almost ½ of its territory to the USA.

With the division of this territory, the contact between speakers of Mexican Spanish and American English increased.

“Mexicans would come to learn English as a second language and speak a variety of non-native English that could be characterized as a learner’s English. This learner’s English contained various patterns such as phonology, syntax, and semantics from Mexican Spanish. Within the germ of this interlanguage or learner’s English, a new language would be formed and codified by the children of these English learners. This language is known as Mexican American language” (C. Barrón & San Román, 2006).

It is important to note that Chicano English is not simply English influenced by Spanish. Speakers of Chicano English have acquired English perfectly. Chicano English therefore, is a variety of English spoken by fluent English speakers who are not English learners. Chicano English is an ethnic dialect that many children acquire as they acquire English in the barrio or other ethnic social setting during their language acquisition period.

Phonological variables on ChE

The phonology of Chicano English is distinguished from the Standard American English (SAE) because of how a Chicano speaker use some words from English, but with a different sound, a stress patterning, an intonation, and a prosody; this can happen by the influence of Mexican Spanish.

It is too normal that Chicano speakers have a similar phonology to Mexican Spanish. The real reason is because this is a native language that was produced over many years by Mexican families.

Syntactic variables on ChE

Another thing that differences the Chicano English from SAE is the Syntax. The Syntactic of the ChE shares some commonalities with the Spanish. The most regular syntactic difference is the multiple negations that they usually do, because in Spanish is very usual that a negative sentence includes a negative morpheme.

I don’t know any stories (SAE)

I don’t know no stories (ChE)

-Linguistic problems as Dirty Words-

“If we are to understand the reigning confusion surrounding English usage, we must first reveal some of the conceptual, social, and political structures that make talk about linguistic "abuses" sound reasonable” (Greenbaum, 1985).

Language experts say that nowadays the English is being mixed with other languages. Due to lots of people migrated from whole world to North America; many words are borrowed from United States.

Anyway, words sharing by USA has been used and mixed with other words. Chicano speakers often take the words from English to Spanish, which causes the English change in his structure. For example: "Baica" from bike, "bonche" (bunch), "cachar" (catch), "puchar" (push), "quequi" (cake), "raite" (ride), "yarda" (yard), etc.

The last words sometimes can be interpreted as dirty words, but as a Mexican writer, Eduardo del Río García (Rius) said that in each country, where some words seems to be bad words (dirty words) can cause problems, and in occasions they can cause diplomatic rupture or breakups. 

-Code switching in ChE (Chicano English)-

Many people can consider Chicano English as an American language variety spoken by Mexicans-Americans. It is not common the mixing of English and Spanish sentences, but society is often associating the Spanglish as the official dialect of a Chicano speaker.

“Chicano English does not necessary imply a situation of bilingualism” (Putrino, 2010).

Paraphrasing to Rosalba Putrino, she says, that code switching allows to the speaker to communicate using codes from their native language in another one. This is a typical action of bilinguals that happens when a word in a language cannot be found or when someone mixes their first language with the second language.

Basically, Code switching can be defined as an accident that occurs when a person mixes two or more languages. Usually, this affects the languages used previously, because then people will adopt that word or phrase as a habit and others not are going to understand them.

-Methodology-

To confirm some of the ideas of this project, we did a quiz about Chicano English. In this test we asked five different questions related to the topic. People that have participated were six and with their answers they shared us their opinions about Chicano speakers. They were students of the career of "Ciencias Del Lenguaje" from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. The questions were open for them to express themselves freely. Obviously, they wrote different opinions but there are some similar things.

-Results-

This is a qualitative research where people from the Facultad de Filosofía y Letras shared their view about Chicanos. Students think that the Spanglish is the official dialect of Chicano speakers. Some of them said that Chicanos are mixing their native language and the second language which they are exposed. On the other hand, other participants said that Chicanos are Latinos who migrate and live in the Mexico-United States border. As Rosalba Putrino wrote in her Thesis that lots of people think as our respondents, but not necessarily they (Chicanos) are related with that. A Chicano also can be a US-born person with Mexican ancestry and can speak English in a natural way.