lunes, 24 de noviembre de 2014
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
Conclusion
The purpose of this project was to show all the
characteristics of the Chicano people and the history of the dialect. With the
interviews that we applied, we noticed that most of the students made the
relation of the Chicanos with the Spanglish, but the thing that they don't know
is that the Spanglish is not an original dialect. Also, with the research that
we made, we saw that the code switching is mixing both languages
and that is why people think that it is related with the Spanglish and in that
way we learned how the Chicano English dialect was born.
References
C. Barrón, C., & San Román, J. (2006). Teachers guide to supporting Mexican American Standard English Learners. Obtenido de http://achieve.lausd.net/cms/lib08/CA01000043/Centricity/Domain/217/MEXICAN%20AMERICAN_TEACHER%20GUIDE.PDF
Del Río García, E. (2008). El libro
de las malas palabras. México.
Greenbaum, S. (1985). The
English Language Today. London: Pergamon Press.
Putrino, R. (2010). Identity and code switching. Obtenido de
http://dare.uva.nl/cgi/arno/show.cgi?fid=351765
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