The number of Hispanics in the United States has been on the rise, especially the last century. The mixture of the two cultures has set the center stage for a dilemma, especially in terms of language use. On the one hand, the monolingual speakers of English in the US expect the Hispanics to use English as their primary mode of communication. On the other hand, monolingual Spanish speakers expect them to use pure Spanish as the language of choice. However, the emergence of the two communities has primarily led to a new language known as Spanglish, which incorporates both Spanish and English elements. The purpose of the discussion is to assess the emergence of hybrid language through the lenses of Spanglish. I will discuss Spanglish using a socio- linguistic approach. I will conduct research about the Mexican Americans culture and the language that helps them acculturate to the United States. Special attention will be placed on how the Mexican American community uses Spanglish to represent itself and thrive.
Sociolinguistic Approach of Spanglish
The first lens to the analysis of the Spanglish revolves around the sociolinguistic approach. Rodríguez-González & Parafita-Couto (2012) asserts that the coexistence of language within societies is a common phenomenon. Language contact should not be viewed as an exception but rather as a norm. The contact could possibly result in different outcomes that include the borrowing of vocabulary, creation of new terms, and the development of autonomous language. The sociolinguistic approach emphasizes that the study of language should take an interdisciplinary approach. In this case, social and linguistic aspects are interwoven to account for language development in changing and emerging societies. The emergence of the Spanish in the US stems from the increase in the Hispanic population that dates back to the 1848 annexation of the Mexican territory (Rodríguez-González & Parafita-Couto, 2012). Immigration has continued to keep Spanish alive in the US. Without it, most of the Hispanics would have adopted English as their main mode of communication. It is without a doubt that the emergence of the Spanglish has been due to the alternate use of the Spanish and English languages among the bilingual speakers.
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Rodríguez-González & Parafita-Couto (2012) focus on three fundamental mechanisms that sever as the antecedent for the emergence of the Spanglish language. The first one revolves around the borrowing of words from English to Spanish. The second phenomenon is divided into two, including inter-sentential and intra-sentential. The phenomenon involves switching between sentences. The third aspect identified by the authors is known as calque, which includes the direct loaning of words and phrases. It is also critical to appreciate that in the bilingual communities, the alternating use of two languages in the same utterance is common.
As of 2014, the number of Hispanics living in the US was at 55.4 million people (Casielles-Suárez, 2017). With the growing population, different entities, including journalists, educators, linguistics, and the general population, have continued to pay more attention to language choices. Among the Hispanics, the challenge has revolved around whether to adopt English, maintain Spanish, or settle for the hybrid version of the two languages. It is, however, apparent that the use of Spanish in the US has come under attack with the Hispanics being encouraged to use English just like all the other minority populations have done. Casielles-Suárez (2017) asserts that the term “Spanglish” was developed by Salvador Tio, a Puerto Rican, in the 1940s. The term has since been used to denote the mixture of English and Spanish languages. The use of the language is more frequent in Spanish-English bilingual speakers. The importance of the Spanglish language in the US cannot be overstated. Stavans, (2000) in emphasizing this point says, “It is a bridge of sorts that unites the Latino community in the United States, and also one that reaches out towards Latin America.”
Another branch of the sociolinguistic approach that explains the emergence and use of the Spanglish is referred to as the discursive construction of identity. Torkington (2012) asserted that it is natural that whenever two different societies interact, what follows is an attempt to establish an identity that unites them. It is in this regard that Stavans (2000) describes it as an underground vehicle for communication. By using the discursive construction of identity, the first major assumption is that the US is a country of immigrants.
As a nation of immigrants, every group comes with its unique language. The Hispanics migrated into the US in waves, and the families have stayed in the US for many generations. Through the interactions with the non-Hispanic Americans, pressure has mounted on them to adopt the official language of communication, which is English. The other source of the pressure emanates from the Spanish people who advocate for a more conservative approach to language use. The overall impact is harmonization between the two languages leading to the emergence and use of the Spanglish. Therefore, the emergence of Spanglish emphasizes the crucial role that language plays in establishing a group identity. As the two groups continued to interact, liberal thoughts continued to emerge despite the conservative nature of the Hispanics advocating for the pure use of Spanish (Casielles-Suárez, 2017). The pressure to conform meant that many Hispanics started learning English, thereby contributing to the native speaking of both languages. The resultant code-switching, alternate use of sentence and calque led to the eventual development of Spanglish.
How Does The Mexican American Community Use Spanglish To Represent Itself And Thrive?
It is without a doubt that the use of Spanglish has continued to thrive among the Hispanic communities living in the US. The use of the language has not only found room in casual communication but also in music, literature, print advertisement, and other forms of media. In this regard, the use of Spanglish has fundamentally received assessment from two points of views. First, a section of the population feels that it is a threat to both the Spanish and English languages. On the other hand, others have felt that the Spanglish has a emerged as a new dialect that will not only serve the Hispanic communities of today but also the generations to come. The spread of the language has largely been influenced by the overconcentration of Hispanics from different parts of the world in specific areas of the US (Olague, 2003).
The use of Spanglish among the Hispanic communities continues to take root. Artists such as Enrique Iglesias represents a classic example of a musician that combines the use of Spanish and English languages in his songs as depicted in “No Apagues La Luz.” In literature, the language has been used as a way of conveying the representation of the Hispanic culture to the readers. Most of the Latino literature today contains a significant amount of calques, code-switching, and loan words (Olague, 2003). Lastly, the language has also thrived significantly in news broadcasts. Although broadcasts beaming to the Hispanic communities use Spanish, the continued use of Spanglish in the recent years depicts the paradigm shift in language use.
Conclusion
In conclusion, by looking at the sociolinguistic approach and the discursive construction of identity, the discussion has explained the emergence and use of Spanglish in the US. Due to the unprecedented immigration, the Hispanics have come to the US in large numbers. The sociolinguistic approach views the coexistence of languages in society as a common aspect. The contact could possibly result in different outcomes that include the borrowing of vocabulary, creation of new terms, and the development of autonomous language. On the other hand, the discursive construction of identity emphasizes the essence of language in creating a group identity. On the one hand, language can be a tool for creating a divergence in society. However, it could also lead to convergence once people determine a common way of interaction via the use of a common discourse.
References
Bazán-Figueras, P., & Figueras, S. J. (2014). The Future of Spanglish: Global or Tribal? Perspectives on Global Development & Technology, 13(1/2), 261–266. https://doi.org/10.1163/15691497-12341300
CASIELLES-SUÁREZ, E. (2017). Spanglish: The Hybrid Voice of Latinos in the United States. Atlantis (0210-6124), 39(2), 147–168. https://doi.org/10.28914/ATLANTIS-2017-39.2.08
Olague, S. (2003). Towards new dialects: Spanglish in the United States. University of Toronto.
Rodríguez-González, E., & Parafita-Couto, M. C. (2012). Calling for Interdisciplinary Approaches to the Study of" Spanglish" and Its Linguistic Manifestations. Hispania, 461-480.
Stavans, I. (2000). Spanglish: TICKLING THE TONGUE. World Literature Today, 74(3), 555. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lfh&AN=3848125&site=eds-live
Torkington, K. (2012). Place and lifestyle migration: The discursive construction of ‘glocal’place-identity. Mobilities, 7(1), 71-92.
