spanish/english speech practices: bringing chaos to - u-system

SpanishEnglish Speech PracticesBringing Chaos to Order1

Almeida Jacqueline ToribioThe Pennsylvania State University Pennsylvania USA

This paper presents a linguistic analysis of Spanish-English bilingual speech forscholars and practitioners of bilingualism More specically the study surveys sev-eral outcomes of language contact among these inter-lingual transference code-switching and convergence as evidenced in the speech practices of heritage Spanishspeakers in the United States The emergent assessment is linguistically informedthereby illuminating our understanding of bilingual speech forms and encouragesperspectives and pedagogies that validate bilingual speech practices

Keywords contact codeswitching convergence

Introduction

I am the sum total of my language (Charles Sanders Peirce)

iquestY si soy mas de uno PeirceiquestY si soy doso treso ndash como dirWa David ndashun milloniquestEn que momento en que participio del mundose convierte tu suma en mi resta Peirce (Gustavo Perez Firmat)

The language situation and linguistic behaviours of heritage Spanish speak-ers in the United States are seldom regarded impassively the ambiguityexpressed in the above title is intended to invoke the contradictory and con-ictive fervour with which Spanish-English bilingual speech practices havebeen addressed by scholars educators and policymakers On one representa-tive position the bilingualism and attendant linguistic manifestations that mayresult from the sustained contact of heritage and dominant language arelauded as essential to communication in bilingual communities where speak-ers are commonly called on to access a continuum of grammatical discursiveand sociolinguistic competencies in one or the other of two languages (cfValdes 2000)

A lot of people look at it as a disadvantagehellip lsquoOh yoursquore Spanishrsquo2 Butthe way I look at it is this blessed yoursquore blessed to speak two differentlanguages (quoted in Toribio 2003a)

[I]t is helpful to imagine that when bilinguals code-switch they are infact using a twelve-string guitar rather than limiting themselves to twosix-string instruments (Valdes 1988 126)

1367-00500402 0133-22 $20000 Oacute 2004 AJ ToribioBILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM Vol 7 No 2amp3 2004

133

134 Bilingual Education and Bilingualism

However as lamented by Zentella (1998 2000) it is also indeed much toofrequently attested that in the lsquolinguistic logicrsquo of US society heritage Spanishis a negative carryover that must be cancelled out and the would-be benetof possessing and deploying Spanish alongside English is equated with zero

A teacher comes up to you and tells you lsquoNo no You know that is althy language nothing but bad words and bad thoughts in thatlanguagersquo I mean they are telling you that your language is bad (quotedin Salazar 1970 cited in Crawford 1992)

Those poor kids come to school speaking a hodgepodge They are allmixed up and donrsquot know any language well As a result they canrsquoteven think clearly (quoted in Walsh 1991 106)

The present article elaborates a linguistically informed assessment of thecontact Spanish contact English and Spanish-English bilingual speech of heri-tage Spanish speakers in the United States devoting attention to bilingualdevelopment and deployment and to several phenomena of language contactand interaction among others inter-linguistic inuence or transferenceespecially salient in early stages of learning codeswitching the alternatinguse of two language codes and convergence the increased equivalencebetween two languages or language varieties3 The survey will make evidentthat rather than compensating for linguistic deciency lsquoillicit language actsrsquosignal the strategic and efcient use of linguistic and cognitive resources inthe appropriation and management of two language systems

The paper is organised as follows The discussion is deliberated in theexposition of relevant research in bilingual codeswitching English-langu-age development heritage language decline and loss and contact-inducedconvergence together with illustrative contact English contact Spanish andSpanish-English bilingual samples culled from the literature The work endswith the presentation of three activities suitable for classroom use that mayfurther advance educatorsrsquo appreciation of the speech practices of Spanish-English bilinguals and in so doing dispel certain misconceptions of thelinguistic abilities of heritage Spanish speakers in the United States

Bilingual Speech Practices

Spanglish is the language of border diplomacy (Guillermo Gomez Pena)

In most bilingual communities members nd themselves situated along acontinuum that induces different lsquolanguage modesrsquo (Grosjean 1998) within alsquobilingual rangersquo (Valdes 2000)4 For instance Zentella (1981 1997) reportsthat in her long-term participant study of the linguistic practices of el bloquea Puerto-Rican community in el barrio of East Harlem children could beobserved to speak English with each other while shifting to Spanish in defer-ence to their elders as illustrated in the recorded exchange in (1) For thesechildren Spanish and English together constitute their linguistic competencein a singular sense and their linguistic performance will draw primarily uponEnglish or Spanish as required by the lsquoobservablesrsquo of the speech situationeg pragmatic norms specic setting and participants5

135SpanishEnglish Speech Practices

(1) Context Lolita (age 8) pushes Timmy (age 5) off her bike and Timmytells the adults nearby

L to T Get off Timmy get offT to adults Ella me dio (lsquoShe hit mersquo)L to T Porque TU me diste (lsquoBecause YOU hit mersquo)T to L LiarAdult to L iquestPor que (lsquowhyrsquo)L to adult Porque el me dio por eso El siempre me esta dando cuando

me ve (lsquoBecause he hit me thatrsquos why Hersquos always hitting mewhenever he sees mersquo)

It is also commonplace in such communities that as bilingual speakers interactin bilingual mode they will extend this ability to alternating languages inunchanged speech situations ndash that is to codeswitching (Zentella 1988)

Gumperz in his seminal work on discursive strategies notes the importantfunctions served by codeswitching (Gumperz 1976 1982)6 The premiseunderlying his and many subsequent studies is that codeswitching is a con-scious choice on the part of the speaker Consider by way of example thestudy by Montes-Alcala (2001) which is dedicated to analysing bilingual emailexchanges and imputing particular stylistic goals to specic code-alternationssample forms appear in (2)

(2) Stylistic features commonly marked by language alternations

(a) reported speechI think so dijo ellsquoI think so said hersquo

(b) emphasisMientras estara a miles de millas away from herelsquoMeanwhile he must be thousands of miles away from herersquo

(c) elaborationCaminamos por Melrose checking out the stores y luego decidimos ir acenarlsquoWe walked on Melrose checking out the stores and then wedecided to go to dinnerrsquo

(d) parentheticalsAllW totally out of the blue acabamos planeando un viaje para la semanaque vienelsquoThere totally out of the blue we ended up planning a trip for thecoming weekrsquo

(e) xed or formulaic phrasesNo tenWa fuerzas para nada asW que lo deje and I called it a daylsquoI did not have strength for anything so I left him and I called ita dayrsquo

As shown the author carefully controls her languages bending them to herwill rather than simply conning herself to the dictates of their individualform (cf Ferguson 1982 Widdowson 1994)

Another however markedly different example of the lsquoownershiprsquo of langu-


age is discerned in the dictionaries in (3) created by the adult migrant farmworkers depicted in Kalmar (1980 2001) Presented with few opportunities fordeveloping English language skills Jacinto Cipriano and Alonso took holdof their own education directing their Spanish-language abilities in assertingthemselves in English

(3) (a) Jacintorsquos dictionairyAVIVAC helliphellip lsquoahorita regresorsquo (lsquoIrsquoll be backrsquo)LIMISI helliphelliplsquodejame verrsquo (lsquoLet me seersquo)AIDONO helliphelliplsquoyo no sersquo (lsquoI donrsquot knowrsquo)LRERO helliphelliplsquopocorsquo (lsquoa littlersquo)

(b) Ciprianorsquos dictionaryJAMACH DU YU ORN hellip helliplsquoiquestcuanto ganasrsquo (lsquoHow much do youearnrsquo)AI NID SAM ER hellip helliplsquonecesito airersquo (lsquoI need some airrsquo)AI GUENT TU TAON hellip helliplsquoyo fui al pueblorsquo (lsquoI went to townrsquo)GUIQUEN GOU NAU helliphelliplsquopodemos ir ahorarsquo (lsquoWe can go nowrsquo)

(c) Alfonsorsquos dictionaryTU URRILLAP helliphelliplsquodarse prisarsquo (lsquoto hurry uprsquo)RUAT AUEY helliphelliplsquoen seguidarsquo (lsquoright awayrsquo)GUIOLTY helliphellip lsquoculpablersquo (lsquoguiltyrsquo)TU RUICH helliphellip lsquoalcanzarrsquo (lsquoto reachrsquo)

Though neither English nor Spanish this non-native and non-target varietyis not to be characterised in terms of acquisitional inadequacy (cf Brutt-Grifer 2002 Kachru 1983 Romaine 1992) but rather in terms of linguisticempowerment through these entries migrant workers claim an lsquootherrsquo langu-age in communicating and recording everyday life events7

To be sure the language samples in the dictionaires differ in signicantrespects from those in the email exchanges the latter of interest here Mostobviously the Spanish-English bilingual author of the forms in (2) does notalternate her languages for lack of knowledge of structures or lexical items inher language systems but in fullling lsquoa conscious desire to juxtapose the twocodes to achieve some literary effect an exercise of self-consciousnessrsquo (Lipski1982 191) However similar to the language forms of the dictionaries code-switched forms are context-bound practiced by bilinguals for bilingualsIndeed for many bilinguals codeswitching is an in-group or community norm(cf Toribio 2002 Zentella 1981 1997) Not mixing languages in certain cir-cumstances would be considered irregular and socioculturally insensitive (cfSeliger 1996)

Spanish-English Bilingual Codeswitching

lsquoSometimes Irsquoll start a sentence in English y termino en espanolrsquo (title ofPoplack 1980)

Parallel to studies focused on the social and discursive factors that enterinto its use are research efforts that have examined the grammatical properties


of codeswitched speech8 Consider the codeswitched forms that comprise thechildrenrsquos narrative in (4)9

(4) lsquoRobin el Chicano birdrsquo (Campbell 1977 cited in Timm 1993)10

lsquoRobin get uprsquo said Mrs BirdThe sun was coming up Era una fresca manana en primaveralsquoRobin get uprsquohelliprepeated Mrs BirdRobin could hardly open his eyes He was so sleepylsquoRobinrsquo called Mrs Bird for the third timeRobin escucho el canto de unos pajarillos que celebraban the arrival of springlsquoIf only I could singrsquo said Robin He got up and went to the windowVio lots of birds jumping from place to place mientras cantaban alegre-mentelsquoIf only I could singrsquo Robin said again with tears en sus ojosThen he ew away yendo a parar on top of a dried bush by a little pond

In the rst lines of the above narrative inter-sentential codeswitching isprevalent entire segments may be identied as well-formed Spanish andEnglish sentences As the narrative progresses the author moves betweenEnglish and Spanish within the connes of a single clause unveiling a modethat offers greater expressive possibilities without violating the grammaticalrules of either Spanish and English (Pfaff amp Chavez 1986 Toribio amp Vaquera-Vasquez 1995)11 Such intra-sentential codeswitched forms readily suggest ahigh degree of competence in the component languages Nevertheless asPoplack (1980 615) asserts it is lsquoprecisely those switch types which havetraditionally been considered most deviantrsquo Furthermore the nomenclature ndashterms such as Spanglish and Tex-Mex for Spanish-English codeswitching ndashcarries pejorative connotations reecting these misconceptions about theintellectual or linguistic abilities of those who codeswitch (cf Fernandez 1990Flores amp Hopper 1975) Perhaps most injuriously the latter impressions aregiven voice not only by educators and policymakers but by persons withinthe bilingual speech communities themselves ie many heritage speakersinternalise the stigma attached to their speech forms and ascribe only negativeor covert prestige if any to their community speech norms (cf Toribio 2002Wald 1988 Zentella 1998)12

But it is by now well-established among researchers in linguistics that intra-sentential codeswitching is not a random mixture of two awed systemsrather it is rule-governed and systematic demonstrating the operation ofunderlying grammatical restrictions13 Procient bilinguals may be shown toexhibit a shared knowledge of what constitutes appropriate intra-sententialcodeswitching For example Spanish-English bilingual speakers will agreethat all of the codeswitching examples previously illustrated represent accept-able bilingual forms whereas other language alternations do not Considerthe excerpt from the lsquoSnow White and the Seven Dwarfsrsquo fairy tale narrativein (5) the language alternations in this invented text include switching atboundaries known to breach codeswitching norms (eg between auxiliary andmain verb between object pronoun and main verb between noun andmodifying adjective)


(5) lsquoSnow White and the Seven Dwarfsrsquo lsquoBlancanieves y los Siete Enanitosrsquo

Erase una vez una linda princesita blanca como la nieve Su madrastra la reinatenWa un magico mirror on the wall The queen often asked lsquoWho is themas hermosa del vallersquo Y un dWa el mirror answered lsquoSnow White is thefairest one of allrsquo Very envious and evil the reina mando a un criado quematara a la princesa El criado la llevo al bosque y out of compassion aban-doned la allW A squirrel took pity on the princess and led her to a pequenacabina en el monte En la cabina vivWan siete enanitos que returned to ndSnow White asleep in their beds Back at the palace the stepmother againasked the espejo lsquoY ahora iquestquien es la mas bellarsquo El espejo otra vez leanswered without hesitation lsquoSnow Whitersquohellip14

In a reading task reported in Toribio (2001b) bilinguals rejected the langu-age alternations in this narrative as being affected and forced Several readersinvoluntarily self-corrected the ill-formed switches in their out-loud perform-ance and although unable to articulate exactly what accounted for their nega-tive assessment of the alternating forms in the narrative some participantsproposed explicit editing recommendations for improving on the ill-formedcombinations of the text

(6) The story was easily understood because I understand English andSpanish but I just think like for example the last sentence lsquoWhen SnowWhite bit into the apple she callo desvanecida al suelorsquo that I wouldnrsquot sayit it doesnrsquot sound right I would probably say lsquoWhen White bit into theapple ella se callo al suelorsquo Or lsquoshe fell desvanecida al suelorsquohellip

Signicantly bilinguals proffer such judgments in the absence of overtinstruction ndash speakers are not taught how to codeswitch Nevertheless just asmonolingual native speakers of Spanish and English have an intuitive senseof linguistic well-formedness in their language Spanish-English bilinguals areable to rely on unconscious grammatical principles in producing and evaluat-ing codeswitched strings

Thus contrary to common assumptions codeswitching patterns may beused as a measure of bilingual ability rather than decit In fact the degreeof language prociency that a speaker possesses in two languages has beenshown to correlate with the type of codeswitching engaged in15 In herresearch on bilinguals of diverse levels of competence Poplack (1980) observesthat those who reported to be dominant in one language tended to switch bymeans of tag-like phrases (eg hellipsabeshellipyou know and hellipverdadhellipright) incontrast those who reported and demonstrated the greatest degree ofbilingual ability favoured intra-sentential switches This is corroborated by theethnolinguistic research of Zentella (1981 1997) which attests that procientbilinguals display distinct behaviours in codeswitching from their more Spanish-dominant or English-dominant community peers Likewise Montes-Alcalarsquosemail corpus (cf (2)) demonstrates inter-sentential codeswitching at the begin-ning of the sample when the authorrsquos degree of bilingualism was more lim-ited and increased intra-sentential codeswitching in the later periods as theauthor reached a steady state of bilingualism lsquobuilding a bridge between both


languagesrsquo (Montes-Alcala 2001 198) Finally similar patterns are attestedamong children acquiring two languages from birth (cf Babbe 1995 DeHouwer 1995 Meisel 1989 1994) among children acquiring a second langu-age in early childhood (cf McClure 1981) and among adult second languagelearners (cf Bhatia amp Ritchie 1996 Rakowsky 1989 Toribio 2001a) Takentogether these investigations lead to the conclusion that regardless of agethe childadult bilingualrsquos codeswitching ability reects the development oflinguistic competence in the component languages (Babbe 1995)

Bilingual English and Beyond

lsquoEnglish is broken herersquo (Coco Fusco)

Like Spanish-English bilingual speech forms bilingual English formsemerge from the ways in which heritage Spanish speakers deploy their langu-ages in contact situations Consider the English-language segment in (7) pro-duced by a bilingual child developing English-language literacy The ortho-graphical lsquoerrorsrsquo attested in this English-language sample are predictable onthe basis of the childrsquos pronunciation (itself indicative of the phonological andphonetic differences between his specic Spanish dialect and the standardisedEnglish norm) and the pairing of advanced Spanish-language literacy andincipient English-language literacy (cf Zabaleta amp Toribio 1999)16

(7) my freybret tv show es pober renyers ders 6 paber renyers day rescupersen adey seyt de world edey no ebriting der juymens pat dey morfto paber renyers a sayf da world of Rira an jor masters pat lor zet caman jiguas guyning da paber renyers pat da paber renyers win de barsand day sayf da world17

In this example we see that the differences in the inventory and distributionof the sounds of English versus Spanish prove difcult for the child ndash notethe substitutions for the English sounds [v] and [ ] in ebriting for everythingthe representation of the ap in rita for rita and the fricative in ders fortherersquos English vowels also prove a formidable obstacle for the childespecially noteworthy is the representation of long vowel sounds in feybretfor favorite seyt for saved juymens for humans and the representation oflax vowels as in jor for her da for the and pat for but We observe thereduction or deletion of consonant sequences which are disallowed in Span-ish persen for persons seyt for saved and eday for and they Lastly andmost striking are the Spanish-phonological processes transferred into Engishorthography the reinforcement of the [w] glide by the insertion of [bg] asin pober for power guas for was guyning for winning and bars forwars Thus while the text may be assailed as representative of the intrusionof one system on another or worse dismissed as impenetrable by the inexpertreader it is most properly characterised as demonstrative of inter-lingualinuence and most protably regarded as an agentive practice permitting thechild author to draw on his native language abilities to their full advantage

In addition to pronunciation (and its orthographical representation) theinvoluntary inuence of the native language on the second language may be


observed at the level of morphology and syntax (cf Baetens Beardsmore 1986Clyne 1972 Grosjean 1982) Consider the bilingual English examples in (8)uttered by kindergarteners in relating scenes from a picture book and thosein (9) prepared in written form by fth and seventh Grade Spanish heri-tage students18

(8) (a) And this is a bear snowhellip a book coloreding(b) A pig and a kitty big and a snake big

(9) (a) I like the shark because is my faborite sea animal(b) I didnrsquot like the lake because is to dirty and is not good for

swimminghellip(c) I like the star sh and the diferents snails(d) Thank you for explaining what eat the animals in the sea(e) Thank you for letas see the pictures of the sea

In discussing the bilingual English forms of the children represented in (8)Miller (1995) points to the differential development in lexicon versus gram-mar Specically she writes lsquoThey learned rst those elements of Englishwhich would prove most efcient that is which would convey the most infor-mation in the simplest way possible As a result their English lexiconapproaches the level of their monolingual peers while their English syntax isnot as fully developedrsquo (1995 23) This is documented in their naming ofobjects with incorrect adjective-noun order in compounds and in phrases In(9) there are additional exemplars in which Spanish language grammaticalproperties underlie English-language productions we detect the non-expression of subject pronouns in (9a b) the agreement of adjective and nounin (9c) the post-verbal positioning of a subject in (9d) and the innitive-plus-enclitic complement in (9e) Of course continued experience and instructionin English will lead to target-like pronunciation grammar and overall literacyfor all of the children and adolescents quoted here

Heritage Language Decline and LossMy name hangs around me like a loose tooth (Lorna Dee Cervantes)

Just as bilingual abilities develop with contextualised practice so too canthey decline It has been reported that as speakers become increasingly pro-cient in English they tend to become progressively less procient in Spanishin what Silva-Corvalan (1988) has termed lsquoa bilingual continuumrsquo19 Forexample the narrative in (10) very clearly exposes Spanish language reductionin the lexicon and simplication and restructuring in morphological and syn-tactic structures (eg gender marking lack of doubling of indirect objectsphrases with clitic pronouns) also evident is the use of English words (eggun [cf pistola]) phrases (eg se puso en disguise [cf se disfrazo]) and discoursemarkers (eg so [cf pues])20

(10) Oral narrative (transcribed)

Esta es la historia dehellipCape[l]ucita Roja yhellipla mama de Capelucita Rojadijo quehellipque se lleve este dulce o comida a su abuelita so hellipse fue y


encontro un lobo quehelliphablo con ella y despueshellipella siguio caminandoa casa de la abuelita Pero el lobo se fuehellipllego al casa primero y asustoal abuelita yhellipse puso en hellipdisguise [laugh] de la abuelita so hellipcuandollego Capelucita Roja ella vio que no era su abuelitahellippero al mismotiempo elhellipsquirrel argrillita argrita () dijo a alguien que estaba enmucho ummm danger yhellip [long sigh] el hombre se fue a buscar aCapelucita Roja que sW estaba enhellip in danger y la salvo ummm porquellevohellipunhellip gun a salvarla y Capelucita encontro a su abuelita y estabanfelices estaban bien21

The analysis of such speech forms invites careful consideration however Itmay be the case that for this heritage speaker not enough input and sub-sequent experience with Spanish has resulted in incomplete or imperfect learn-ing and the dominant language has become an lsquoindirect data sourcersquo for thenative language (cf Seliger 1996)22 Or it may be the case that reducedexposure to and use of Spanish has had dire consequences on her linguisticperformance but competence has remained intact (cf Bullock amp Toribio 2004Montrul 2002 Toribio 2000b) Another pertinent factor is the range of linguis-tic forms that served as models for the speakerrsquos Spanish language acquisitionfor instance as reported in the literature the popular repertoire of most lsquoordi-naryrsquo Mexicans who immigrate to the US is made up largely of middle to lowregisters of Spanish characterised by a narrower range of lexical and syntacticalternatives (cf Valdes 1988 2000)23 Thus without application of qualitativeand quantitative methodologies assessing the speakerrsquos language history andabilities we can only conclude that such forms are non-target-like24 And eventhen cautions Lipski lsquoit is not always possible to separate the overlappingdomains of English structural transfer prior existence of archaicnon-stan-dard forms arising outside the United States and the general results of langu-age erosionrsquo (1993 156)

As recounted in Toribio (2002) the speaker whose narrative is representedin (10) presents a prole of features and behaviours that coincide with thosedescribed by Lipski (1993) in his discussion of the ontogenesis of lsquotransitionalbilingualismrsquo little or no school training in Spanish Spanish spoken in earliestchildhood as the language of the home often in conjunction with English arapid shift to English before adolescence subsequent Spanish use limited tointimate circles responding to bilinguals partially or wholly in English whenaddressed in Spanish25 Likewise the speech forms in (11ndash13) drawn fromextracts of a personal diary (cf Toribio 2000) exemplify the linguistic charac-teristics of vestigial Spanish usage signalled by Lipski instability of nominaland adjectival inection (11) incorrectly conjugated verb forms (12) errors ofprepositional usage and categorical use of redundant subject pronouns (13)

(11) Alterations in nominal and adjectival agreement(a) Fuimos a dejar el televicion viejo a la casa [sic]

lsquoWe went to leave the old television at the housersquo [cf el televisorviejola televicion vieja]

(b) Y les dices que haga una cosahellip [sic]lsquoAnd you tell them to do somethinghelliprsquo [cf le dices que haga les dicesque hagan]


(c) Nomas los muchachos de mW tioshellip [sic]lsquoOnly my unclesrsquo kids helliprsquo [cf mis tWos]

(12) Alterations in verbal morphology(a) Sabes salemos todos negrWos de la labor [sic]

lsquoWe come out all black from the eldrsquo [cf salimos](b) Para los muchachos cuando vienieran a medio dia [sic]

lsquoFor the boys when they would come at mid-dayrsquo [cf vinieran](c) Ama me digo que le poniera un bote de aguahellip [sic]

lsquoAma told me to put a bottle of waterhelliprsquo [cf pusiera]

(13) Alterations in pronouns prepositions and complementisers(a) Fui a despedir de todos los del grupo [sic]

lsquoI went to say goodbye to all in the grouprsquo [cf despedirme](b) Las vistas llamaban lsquoRafahel el angelrsquo [sic]

lsquoThe movies were called lsquoRafael the angelrsquo [cf se llamaban](c) Las ores que estan en un lado de mi ventana se fueron cayendo

las ramas [sic]lsquoThe stems on the owers that are on one side of my windowsstarted fallingrsquo [cf a las oreshellipse le fueron cayendo]

(d) Siempre habWa sabido que el doctor B era muy buena jente yo le dijeera [sic]lsquoShe had always known Dr B to be a good person I said he wasthatrsquo [cf le dije que lo era]

(e) Pos yo digo a uno le hace sentirsehellip [sic]lsquoWell I say that it makes one feelhelliprsquo [cf digo que a uno]

(f) Ama digo que no movWeramos nada hasta sepamos de verdad [sic]lsquoAma told us not to move anything until we know for surersquo [cfhasta que sepamos]

(g) Bueno las tengo que contestar pronto para salgan el Lunes [sic]lsquoWell I have to respond to them quickly so that they go out onMondayrsquo [cf para que salgan]

Notably these characteristics are seldom if ever found among uent nativespeakers or even among bilinguals whose Spanish contains structural inter-ference from English who readily recognise these as being non-target-like

Bilingual Spanish

lsquoI donrsquot speak Spanish I just only speak English with Spanish wordsrsquo(eight-year-old boy)

Consonant with the foregoing discussion the appearance of English langu-age elements in Spanish language contexts need not be interpreted as indica-tive of attrition it could simply be an instance of codeswitching in whichcase the grammatical autonomy and integrity of each language may be main-tained This is not to say however that the Spanish of procient bilingualsis impervious to the incursions of the second language system As afrmedby Silva-Corvalan (1994) among others the permeability of a grammar to


external inuence depends on the existence of supercially parallel structuresin the languages in contact (but cf Thomason amp Kaufman 1988) Althoughthe differences between Spanish and English are signicant (and therefore itis premature to speak of one fused syntax and two vocabularies ndash cf Muys-kenrsquos (2000) congruent lexicalisation ndash as implied by the boy quoted immedi-ately above) there is considerable syntactic parallelism between the two lang-uages which may lead to convergence Two salient properties demonstratethe differences and emergent similarities at once English allows only for pre-verbal positioning of subjects Spanish accepts preverbal subjects butadditionally sanctions post-verbal placement (eg Llego Juan lsquoJuan arrivedrsquo)And English requires that subjects be overtly expressed Spanish toleratesovert subjects but additionally licenses (and in some contexts requires) thatsubjects have no overt realisation (eg Hablo espanol lsquoI speak Spanishrsquo) Suchequivalence is the basis for emergent convergence in Spanish-English bilingualsettings ndash to be found in the reduction of grammatical options in the heritagelanguage with greater allowance to those shared with the dominant linguisticsystem ndash and may be the basis for further structural convergence between thetwo linguistic systems (Muysken 2000) This raises the important question ofwhether specic language forms are further favoured when the languages aresimultaneously deployed

The issue then is not whether the Spanish language is maintained whiledrifting towards or converging with the grammatical options shared with theEnglish language system but whether this drift is promoted by bilingual (vsmonolingual) language modes (cf Grosjean 1998)26 In testing these claims ofinter-lingual violability Toribio (2003b 2004) examines the variation that isattested in the Spanish speech data produced by a codeswitching bilingual ashe engages in Spanish and Spanish-English codeswitched speech across twoconditions27 The above-referenced syntactic features of Spanish ndash the pos-itioning and (non) expression of subjects ndash were selected for inquiry28 Sincethese properties of Spanish syntax are determined by discourse ndash and seman-tic-pragmatic considerations their analysis must go beyond the connes ofisolated sentences to a consideration of linguistic forms in relation to the narra-tive or other discourse functions that they perform within a given text Theextended discourse of the monolingual excerpt of Little Red Riding Hood in(14) and the bilingual extract of The Beggar Prince in (15) prove especiallyopportune for examination of subject expression and positioning howeverthe cursory discussion that follows is focused on the omission (marked by )versus expression of the subject to the exclusion of its positioning29

(14) hellipCuando iba cuando ella iba cantando y caminando de prontodetras de un arbol salio el lobo el mismo lobo que la iba persiguiendoEl le dio unas ores y le dijo que bonita se miraba Tambien le pre-gunto que parsquo donde iba verdad y ella le respondio y le dijo lsquovoy a la casa de mi abuelita a darle unhellip un enhellip a entregarle algo quemama me mando No se que esrsquo Entonces el le dijo lsquoOkay pues

nos vemos Y ten buen dWarsquo En eso el se fue y ella siguio por elbosque feliz cantando con sus ores que le dio el lobo Mientras ellaiba por el bosque el lobo se apuro y llego a la casa de la abuelita30


(15) hellipSince she had agreed to go and live with him Ella dijo que voy aver a ver cuanto puedo quedarme aquW Letrsquos see if I could get used toit Well she did se quedo almost you know ella dijo lsquo Me voy a quedaraquW un mes y a ver a ver que talrsquoy llegando el la cuarta semana pues ya entonces ella empezo a sentir el quetan duro es trabajar how how easy she had it how all the things thatthat that she took for granted you know she uh she started to reectupon asW que ella decidio en la durante la cuarta semana de que ella se iba aregresar al palacio ella no podia vivir como una pesona humilde31

At rst observation the Spanish of both texts appears structurally well-formed most expressed subject pronouns correctly serve the function of con-trast switch reference or disambiguation But there are some pronominaluses to which no such function can be attributed especially when the Englishlanguage is also activated noteworthy in this respect are the pronouns inthe bilingual Spanish samples in (14) The use of pronouns in these bilingualselections is not grammatically incorrect but discourse-pragmatically oddbeing marked by a selection of available grammatical options that coincidewith those of English Thus unlike the attrition previously discussed thesepassages do not involve the incorporation or loss of morphological infor-mation or syntactic structures Yet similar to the attrition already mentionedthe subtle changes represented are motivated by a principle of redundancyreduction the speaker arrives at the most parsimonious grammar that canserve both Spanish and English when both systems are activated (Seliger 1996Toribio 2004)

To recapitulate there is implicit in procient bilingual speech behaviour anappeal towards economy the speaker reduces processing costs while enjoyingthe richness of bilingualism (Muysken pc) Such a nding affords an expla-nation for why Spanish-English bilingual speakersrsquo Spanish language abilitiesmay not be identical to those of native speakers who have acquired and usedtheir Spanish in settings in which only Spanish is employed for all interac-tions32 Finally such a nding leads to a judgment against cries of corruptionand degradation by the self-proclaimed conservators of the Spanish languageFor it is uncertain states Valdes (2000 119) lsquowhether linguistic conservatismis a predictor of language maintenance or whether the survival of a languagein a minority-majority context requires the acceptance of ldquointerferencerdquophenomena by its speakersrsquo (cf Silva-Corvalan 1994 Woolard 1992)

Pedagogical Implications

Our real lives are the family our friends the street jobs and all that wecame with from before (a high school student quoted in Walsh 1991)

It is hoped that the foregoing discussion may be heeded as an exhortation toeducators to become familiar with the research literature on bilingual speechpractices Much is to be gained by educatorsrsquo understanding of the languagediversity of heritage language students especially as they uphold the stan-dardised linguistic varieties that are required for academic success (cf Valdes2000) The ensuing paragraphs present pedagogical practices that further pro-


mote this positive disposition towards heritage language students their parti-cular speech forms and their communities of practice33

Teachers who serve Spanish heritage language students may carry outexaminations of bilingual materials in concert with activities in subjects suchas social studies and language arts Suitable exemplars are readily availablein the literary output of poets and writers The linguistic inections in TatoLavierarsquos bilingual poem lsquoMy graduation speechrsquo reproduced in (16) areespecially instructive for high school audiences The poem reects Lavierarsquosdeliberate use of lsquoanti-aestheticrsquo language to render an enactment and com-mentary of the linguistic dilemma of Puerto Ricans in the United States(Flores 1993)34

(16) lsquoMy graduation speechrsquo

i think in spanishi write in englishi want to go back to puerto ricobut i wonder if my kink could livein ponce mayaguez and carolinatengo las venas aculturadasescribo en spanglishabraham en espanolabraham in englishtato in spanishlsquotarorsquo in englishtonto in both languageshow are youiquestcomo estasi donrsquot know if irsquom comingor si me fui yasi me dicen barranquitas yo replylsquocon que se come esorsquosi me dicen caviar i digolsquoa new pair of converse sneakersrsquoahW supe que estoy jodWoahW supe que estamos jodWosenglish or spanishspanish or englishspanenglishnow dig thishablo lo ingles mataohablo lo espanol mataono se leer ninguno bienso it is spanglish to mataowhat i digo

iexclay virgen yo no se hablar

Numerous and varied themes arise in the interpretation of this poem someoriented towards content and others focused on linguistic form At one level


the poem is an indictment of the educational system at another the linguisticmodulation of the poem represents the difculty of marking out an lsquointerling-ualrsquo space Laviera presents a poet-persona who is silenced by the linguisticmismatch between English and Spanish one who is inarticulate even inSpanglish not only by assertion (lsquoSpanglish to mataorsquo) but also by employingin his speech such combinations as lsquoyo replyrsquo lsquoor si me fui yarsquo and lsquowhat idigorsquo switches which as noted are unacceptable among bilingual speakers(Toribio amp Vaquera-Vasquez 1995) Yet writes Flores (1993 176) the closingline lsquomust be understood ironically the reader is by now aware that thespeaker knows what he is saying and can say what he thinks in both languagesand in a wide array of combinations of the tworsquo

Linguistic issues of voice may also be highlighted in discussing prose narra-tive such that excerpted from Norma Cantursquos CanWcula

(17) Mami was the madrina one year she sewed the most beautiful outtfor the baby Jesus ndash of white tulle embroidered in white silk completewith knitted cap and socks ndash we all helped with the preparativosalthough we usually did anyway even when it was some other neighborwho was the madrina From the tamalada on Christmas Eve for theacostar al nino the singing of Mexican carols and later because we kidsinsisted English ones as well the champurrado and the little bags ofgoodies (oranges pecans Mexican cookies) and the colaciones andother Christmas candy that fell from the star-shaped pinata thatinvariably Tono the oldest of the neighborhood bullies would breakDona Carmenrsquos posada was the best

The Spanish lexical items function as echoes of a cultural tradition thatremains inaccessible to the main language of the text English Thus while wemay offer the facile conclusion of lexical borrowing as typical of languagecontact situations as an aesthetic practice its description is more complex forin mixing languages there is a mixing of cultures and of world views that ispart and parcel of the (im)migrant experience

Other classroom activities could reference naturalistic language samplessuch as those afforded in personal narratives Students could be asked tochronicle their own experiences independently or in collaboration with sib-lings and other family members The brief entries in (18) drawn from thepersonal history of an agricultural worker (cf (11ndash13)) are uniquely valuablein allowing for extensive cultural and linguistic analysis and discussion(Toribio 2000a)

(18) Sali para D en avion a las 2 de la tarde pero ya mero no la hacWa comoantes de llegar al aero-puerto se nos etio la llanta de la troca de JEstuve en D por cerca de 4 horas estaba en lsquostand byrsquo [hellip]hellipademasno tenemos agua caliente ni bano para banarnos y el servicWo (escusado)se esta cayendo nomas con unas tablas delgadas sosteniendolo y lapuerta del servicio esta toda quebrada no la puedes cerrer porque si lasierras se quebra Nombre si pisas un poca pesado hellip[hellip] A y D noandan trabajando en la labor nomas se quedan en la troca porque toda-


via no se comienza la escuela para los migrantes creo que empieza hastala semana que entra y nosotros no nos registramos porque ya nos vamospara Norte Kora y Minnestota [hellip] Nomas va a la escuela A y D todoslos demas vamos a trabajar en el betavel Estuvimos levantados desdelas cinco de la manana y el (bus) autobus vino como a las 730 siete ymedia [sic]35

Perhaps the most immediately outstanding feature of the journal is in its formand what it reveals about the author and her social and linguistic disadvan-tages In surviving largely as an oral language the Spanish of this speakermay be attrited in isolation from the codied (written) norm and adapt in itscontact with English The samples represent a simplication of the complexmapping between sound and graphemes to a few known values and repro-duce many of the phonological characteristics of her rural dialect Most tellingof the direct transcription of oral speech is her rendition of the state nameNorte Kora a phonetic representation of her pronunciation of lsquoNorth DakotarsquoThe vocabulary eg items such as la labor lsquothe eldrsquo speaks to her occupationalsegregation in agricultural communities and to broader features of colloquialMexican Spanish eg nomas lsquoonlyrsquo Another salient characteristic of the journalis the adoption of English words and phrases eg phonetically unincorpor-ated forms such as stand by and loan translations such as pero ya mero no lahacWa lsquoI nearly didnrsquot make itrsquo (lit trans) which may be uninterpretable to thereader who has no knowledge of English With respect to grammar the princi-pal tendency in the journal is to simplify the verbal morphology with theresult that there is a greater number of verbs that follow the regular conju-gation in addition mismatches in agreement are noted for subject-verb agree-ment especially with null and post-verbal subjects va a la escuela A y D lsquoAand D go to schoolrsquo But the keynote of this written record is the issue of self-determination the author literally writes her own history in a voice thatclearly articulates her migrant identity

In conclusion it should be patently evident that the introduction ofmaterials and activities such as those outlined above can provide the basis forteacher-facilitated peer discussions on a broad range of viable and vitalissues ndash from civics to orthography ndash that are of personal relevance and edu-cational merit to heritage language students More than that the mere act ofacknowledging that bilingual speech forms are worthy of examination willcultivate an affective environment that will translate into greater engagementon the part of Spanish heritage students

CorrespondenceAny correspondence should be directed to Almeida Jacqueline Toribio

Department of Spanish Italian and Portuguese The Pennsylvania StateUniversity 211 Burrowes Building University Park PA 16801 USA

Notes1 The paper draws its subtitle from a paper co-presented with Santiago Vaquera-

Vasquez at a joint conference of The Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American


Studies and the Pacic Coast Council for Latin American Studies held in Las Vegasin 1995

2 It is not uncommon for Latinos in the US to self-identify as lsquoSpanishrsquo also attestedis the classifying of English-speakers as lsquoEnglishrsquo

3 As described in Muyskenrsquos synchronic study of bilingual speech in many situ-ations of prolonged language contact a number of phenomena involving mixingco-occur lexical borrowing codemixing interference calquing relexication sem-antic borrowing rst language transfer in second language learning (cfMuysken 2000)

4 The reader is referred to Grosjean (1982) for a popular accessible text onbilingualism

5 Consult Zentella (1988 2000) for a discussion of the principal communicative pat-terns ndash lsquowho speaks what to whomrsquo ndash that emerged in her study of the bilingualfamilies of el bloque

6 Gumperz provides a list of discourse functions marked by codeswitching quo-tation addressee specication interjections reiteration and message qualication(cf McClure 1981 Valdes-Fallis 1976) The listing is not exhaustive as a review ofthe literature will demonstrate subsequent research has corroborated Gumperzrsquosclassication and has revealed additional conversational strategies accomplishedby codeswitching Especially noteworthy are the ndings reported by Zentella(1997) who identied at least 22 communicative aims achieved by code alternationamong Puerto Ricans in New York City

7 As such the forms are bound to the context of this migrant community and neednot be regulated by reference to a standardised norm

8 The reader is referred to the early Spanish-English code-switching studies byAguirre (1977 1985) Gingras (1974) Gumperz (1976) Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez (1975) Lipski (1985) McClure (1981) Pfaff (1979) Poplack (1980 1981)Timm (1975) and Zentella (1981)

9 We must bear in mind however that literary examples do not necessarily rep-resent societal usage since the former reect inherent correction editing andrewriting We are nonetheless in agreement with Lipski (1985) that the literaryartefact should not be entirely exempted form sociolinguistic criteria (cf Toribio2001b) For relevant discussion on the narrative structure of codeswitching consultthe literature grounded in Keller (1979)

10 The Spanish portions are translated as follows lsquoIt was a fresh spring morningrsquo(he) listened to the song of the some little birds who were celebratingrsquo (he) sawrsquolsquowhile they sang happilyrsquo lsquoin his eyesrsquo lsquogoing to landrsquo

11 Note that intra-sentential codeswitching is to be distinguished from lexical inser-tions and tag-switches (cf Romaine 1995 for discussion) Lexical insertions (i) andtags (ii) may be evidenced in both monolingual and bilingual modes of interactionin contrast codeswitching of interest here is illustrative of a bilingual speechmode which requires a high degree of bilingual competence

(i) LeW el libro en el reference room (lsquoI read the book in the reference roomrsquo)(ii) Itrsquos raining a lot these days verdad (lsquoItrsquos raining a lot these days isnrsquot itrsquo)

12 When the parents in Zentellarsquos (1981) study of el bloque were asked why they ortheir children shifted between Spanish and English they all attributed it to a lackof linguistic knowledge However her observations revealed that only ten percentof switches were intended to cover gaps in knowledge

13 Consult the syntactic-theoretical works of Belazi et al (1994) DrsquoIntrono (1996) Mac-Swan (1999 2000) Toribio (2001a) Toribio and Rubin (1996) Woolford (1984 1985)

14 In the monolingual rendition the language switches are indicated by a slash marklsquoThere once was a beautiful princess as white as the snow Her stepmother thequeen had a magic mirror on the wall The queen often asked lsquoWho isthe most fair in the valleyrsquo And one day the mirror answered lsquoSnow Whiteis the fairest one of allrsquo Very envious and evil the queen sent a houseboy tokill the princess The houseboy took her to the forest and out of compassionabandoned her there A squirrel took pity on the princess and led her to


a small cabin in the forest In the cabin there lived seven dwarfs that returnedto nd Snow White asleep in their beds Back at the palace the stepmother againasked the mirror lsquoAnd now who is the most beautifulrsquo the mirror againanswered her without hesitation lsquoSnow Whitersquohellip

15 It must not go unremarked however that although codeswitching is subservedby bilingual competence it is not an essential feature of bilingual practiceResearchers such as Valdes (1981) and Lipski (1985) have observed that while com-petence in two languages is a necessary precondition it is an insufcient prerequi-site in determining successful codeswitching performance membership in a com-munity in which codeswitching is practised may also be required That is code-switching practice requires social knowledge that is culturally specic andacquired through contextualised practice (cf Toribio 2002)

16 These data were made available by Richard Duran Professor of Education Univer-sity of California Santa Barbara and director of the project entitled lsquoActivity andClassroom Culture Among Language Learnersrsquo sponsored by the Center forResearch on Education of Students Placed At-risk Johns Hopkins and HowardUniversities

17 A normative orthography would render the following My favourite TV show isPower Rangers Therersquos six power rangers They rescue persons and they savedthe world and they know everything Theyrsquore humans but they morph to powerrangers and save the world of Rita and her masters but Lord Zedd comes and hewas winning the power rangers but the power rangers win the wars and they savethe world

18 The written texts were made available to me by Karen Beckstead19 This pattern of transitional bilingualism is masked by continued inux of monolin-

gual Spanish-speaking immigrants but the shift to English is evident (cf Bills et al1995 Gutierrez amp Silva-Corvalan 1993 MartWnez 1993 Silva-Corvalan 1986 1994Torres 1997) and the lack of intergenerational transmission will usher in languageshift away from Spanish (cf Fishman 1964)

20 Consult Zabaleta (2001) for further discussion on language variation and attritionamong heritage speakers

21 The text is translated as follows lsquoThis is the story of Little Red Riding Hood andhellipLittle Red Riding Hoodrsquos mother said thathellipthat to take these sweets or food toher grandmother sohellipshe went and found a wolf thathellipspoke with her and thenhellip-she continued walking to the grandmotherrsquos house But the wolf wenthelliparrived atthe house rst and scared the grandmother andhelliprsquo

22 This speaker could be said to represent Fishmanrsquos (1964) fourth stage of immigrantbilingualism English has displaced the mother tongue in all except for the mostintimate or private domains

23 Valdes suggests that because of the large inux of persons of rural and working-class backgrounds the Spanish of the Southwest is characterised by features of theMexican normal rural This is not to suggest she cautions that these speakers areunable to alternate Spanish speech styles rather the difference between theSpanish spoken by Mexican-Americans in the Southwest and that spoken in Mex-ico is in the fewer number of styles in the speakersrsquo repertoire and the frequencywith which each style is employed

24 It is unclear whether such tendencies entail changes in competence ie in the for-mal morphosyntactic features of the component languages (cf Platzack 1996) Theinterested reader is referred to Vago (1991) for discussion of aspects of native lang-uage attrition that indicate that more abstract levels of knowledge may be affectedeg as revealed by a speakerrsquos inability to make grammaticality judgments

25 As reported in Toribio (2000b 2002) the speakerrsquos everyday interactions are carriedout almost exclusively in English though she embellishes her speech with Spanish-language discourse markers formulaic expressions and lexical items (which couldbe considered part of her core English-language lexicon) The speaker switches intoSpanish even in bilingual interactions that favour English her dominant languagein order to assert her cultural autonomy and uniqueness ie linguistic modulation


becomes an act of cultural differentiation and reafrmation the linguistic materialaround which her Latina identity is congured

26 Seliger and Vago (1991) note that such a reduction of redundancy presupposesthat the bilingualrsquos languages are not altogether autonomous of each other

27 The speaker was selected for analysis because he reported engaging in oral code-switching in a diversity of discourse contexts especially with in-group memberssuch as friends and family and some reported alternating Spanish and English intheir written communications (eg personal letters and email) as well

28 As is well known the ordering of phrases in Spanish declarative sentences demon-strates a sensitivity to discourse-pragmatic considerations such as theme-rhemetopic-focus requirements and lexical considerations such as verb class (cfLlego Juan lsquoJuan arrivedrsquo vs Estudio Juan lsquoJuan studiedrsquo) In addition subject pro-nouns are omissible in Spanish they are in contexts of contrastive focus switchreference or disambiguation

29 What is required is a thorough quantitative analysis of the positioning of subjectsas sanctioned by verb class and by theme-rhemetopic-focus properties Forinstance the low incidence of post-verbal subjects in the lsquobilingualrsquo Spanish modecould be due to the fact that the speaker produced few unaccusative verbs thatlicense this pattern or that the speaker adopted alternate strategies for markingtheme-rhemetopic-focus contrasts (the latter possibility of course is signicantas it speaks to the point)

30 The segment is translated as follows lsquoWhen she walked when she walked singingand walking from behind a tree there appeared a wolf the same wolf that wasfollowing her He gave her some owers and told her how pretty she looked Healso asked her where she was going right and she responded and said to himlsquoIrsquom going to my grandmotherrsquos house to giver her ahellip ahellip to give her somethingthat mother sent me I donrsquot know what it isrsquo Then he told her lsquoOkay well wersquollsee each other And have a good dayrsquo lsquoJust then he left and she continued throughthe woods happy singing with her owers that the wolf had given her Whileshe walked through the woods the wolf hurried and arrived at the grand-motherrsquos housersquo

31 The Spanish language segments are translated as follows lsquo[hellip] She said that I amgoing to see how long I can stay here [hellip] she stayed [hellip] she said lsquoIrsquom going tostay here a month and see how it isrsquo [hellip] and having arrived the the fourth weekwell then she began to feel the how hard work is [hellip] so she decided in the duringthe fourth week that she was going to return to the palace she could not live likea humble personrsquo

32 This linguistic study also invites investigations into related issues among thesethe assessment of language prociency among bilinguals (cf Valdes amp Figueroa1994) and the simultaneous processing and representation of languages andlanguage modules (cf the early proposal by Sridhar amp Sridhar 1980)

33 Recent treatments such as those of Haberman (1995) Ladson-Billings (1994) andOlsen (1997) have yielded a consistent prole successful teachers are those whodemonstrate a disposition that includes among other attributes an orientation tothe specic community of which the students are members and skills in usingstudentsrsquo linguistic strengths to teach a second language or language variety

34 Consult Bruce-Novoa (1982) and L Flores (1987) for insightful discussion onChicano poetry

35 lsquoI left for D by plane at 2 in the afternoon but I almost didnrsquot make it since beforearriving to the airport we got a at tire on Jrsquos truck I was in D for close to 4hours I was on lsquostand byrsquo [hellip] hellipin addition we donrsquot have hot water nor a bathfor bathing and the facilities re falling only some thin boards holding it togetherand the door is all broken you canrsquot close it because if you close it breaks manif you step on it heavily [hellip]hellipA and D arenrsquot working in the elds they just stayin the truck because school for the migrants doesnrsquot start I think it doesnrsquot startuntil next week and we did not register because we were going to North Dakotaand Minnesota [hellip] Only A and D go to school all the others of us go to work


in the beet elds We were up since ve in the morning and the (bus) bus camearound 730 seven-thirtyrsquo

ReferencesAguirre A Jr (1977) Acceptability judgment of grammatical and ungrammatical forms

of intrasentential code alternation PhD thesis Stanford UniversityAguirre A Jr (1985) An experimental study of code alternation International Journal

of the Sociology of Language 53 59ndash82Babbe M (1995) Language contact in childhood bilingualism MA thesis University

of California Santa BarbaraBaetens Beardsmore H (1986) Bilingualism Basic Principles (2nd edn) Avon Multi-

lingual MattersBelazi H Rubin E and Toribio AJ (1994) Code switching and X-bar theory The

functional head constraint Linguistic Inquiry 25 (2) 221ndash237Bhatia T and Ritchie W (1996) Bilingual language mixing universal grammar and

second language acquisition In W Ritchie and T Bhatia (eds) Handbook of SecondLanguage Acquisition (pp 627ndash688) New York Academic Press

Bills G Hernandez-Chavez E and Hudson A (1995) The geography of languageshift Distance from the Mexican border and Spanish language claiming in the USInternational Journal of the Sociology of Language 114 9ndash27

Bruce-Novoa J (1982) Chicano Poetry A Response to Chaos Austin TX University ofTexas Press

Brutt-Grifer J (2002) World English A Study of its Development Clevedon UK Multi-lingual Matters

Bullock B and Toribio AJ (2004 forthcoming) Intra-system variability and change innominal and verbal morphology In R Gess and D Arteaga (eds) Historical RomanceLinguistics Retrospective and Perspectives A festschrift for Jurgen KlausenburgerAmsterdam Benjamins

Clyne M (1972) Perspectives on Language Contact Melbourne HawthornCrawford J (1992) Hold your tongue Bilingualism and the Politics of ldquoEnglish Onlyrdquo

Reading MA Addison-WelseyDe Houwer A (1995) Bilingual language acquisition In P Fletcher and B Mac-

Whinney (eds) The Handbook of Child Language 219ndash250 Oxford UK BlackwellDrsquoIntrono F (1996) English-Spanish code-switching Conditions on movement In J

Jensen and A Roca (eds) Spanish in Contact (pp 187ndash201) Cambridge CascadillaPress

Fernandez R (1990) Actitudes hacia los cambios de codigos en Nuevo Mexico Reac-ciones de un sujeto a ejemplos de su habla In J Bergen (ed) Spanish in the UnitedStates Sociolinguistic Issues (pp 49ndash58) Washington DC Georgetown UniversityPress

Fishman J (1964) Language maintenance and language shift as a eld of inquiryLinguistics 9 32ndash70

Flores J (1987) Converging languages in a world of conicts Code-switching inChicano poetry Visible-Language 21 130ndash152

Flores J (1993) Divided Borders Essays on Puerto Rican Identity Houston Arte PublicoFlores N and Hopper R (1975) Mexican Americansrsquo evaluation of spoken Spanish

and English Speech Monographs 42 91ndash98Gingras R (1974) Problems in the description of SpanishEnglish intrasentential code-

switching In G Bills (ed) Southwest A Real Linguistics (pp 167ndash174) San DiegoCA University of California Institute for Cultural Pluralism

Grosjean F (1982) Life with Two Languages An Introduction to Bilingualism CambridgeMA Harvard University Press

Grosjean F (1998) Studying bilinguals Methodological and conceptual issuesBilingualism Language and Cognition 1 (2) 131ndash149

Gumperz J (1976) The sociolinguistic signicance of conversational code-switchingUniversity of California Working Papers 46 Berkeley University of California


Gumperz J (1982) Discourse Strategies Cambridge UK Cambridge University PressGumperz J and Hernandez-Chavez E (1975) Cognitive aspects of bilingual communi-

cation In E Hernandez-Chavez A Cohen and A Beltramo (eds) El Lenguaje de losChicanos (pp 154ndash164) Arlington VA Center for Applied Linguistics

Gutierrez M and Silva-Corvalan C (1993) Spanish clitics in a contact situation In ARoca and J Lipski (eds) Spanish in the United States Linguistic Contact and Diversity(pp 75ndash89) Berlin Mouton de Gruyter

Haberman M (1995) Star Teachers of Children in Poverty West Lafayette IN KappaDelta Pi

Kachru BB (1983) The Indianization of English The English Language in India New YorkOxford University Press

Kalmar T (1983) The Voice of Fulano Cambridge MA Schenkman PublishingKalmar T (2001) Illegal Alphabets and Adult Literacy Latino Migrants Crossing the

Linguistic Border Mahwah NJ Lawrence Erlbaum AssociatesKeller G (1979) The literary stratagems available to the bilingual Chicano writer In

F Jimenez (ed) The Identication and Analysis of Chicano Literature (pp 262ndash316)Ypsilanti MI Bilingual Press

Ladson-Billings G (1994) The Dreamkeepers New York Jossey-BassLipski J (1982) Spanish-English code-switching in speech and literature Theories and

models The Bilingual Review 3 191ndash212Lipski J (1985) Linguistic Aspects of Spanish-English Language Switching Tempe AZ

Arizona State University Center for Latin American StudiesLipski J (1993) Creoloid phenomena in the Spanish of transitional bilinguals In A

Roca and J Lipski (eds) Spanish in the United States Linguistic Contact and Diversity(pp 155ndash173) Berlin Mouton de Gruyter

MacSwan J (1999) A Minimalist Approach to Intra-sentential Code switching CambridgeUK Cambridge University Press

MacSwan J (2000) The architecture of the bilingual language faculty Evidence fromintrasentential code-switching Bilingualism Language and Cognition 3 (1) 37ndash54

MartWnez E (1993) Morpho-syntactic Erosion between Two Generational Groups of SpanishSpeakers in the United States New York Peter Lang

McClure E (1981) Formal and functional aspects of the code-switched discourse ofbilingual children In R Duran (ed) Latino Language and Communicative Behavior (pp69ndash94) Norwood NJ ABLEX Publishing

Meisel J (1989) Early differentiation of languages in bilingual children In KHyltenstam and L Obler (eds) Bilingualism Across the Lifespan Aspects of AcquisitionMaturity and Loss (pp 13ndash40) Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press

Meisel J (1994) Code-switching in young bilingual children The acquisition of gram-matical constraints Studies in Second Language Acquisition 16 (3) 413ndash439

Miller E (1995) Language interaction in two bilingual four-year-olds Unpublishedmanuscript University of California Santa Barbara

Montes-Alcala C (2001) Written codeswitching Powerful bilingual images In RJacobson (ed) Code-switching Worldwide II (pp 193ndash219) Berlin Mouton de Gruyter

Montrul S (2002) Incomplete acquisition and attrition of Spanish tenseaspect distinc-tions in adult bilinguals Bilingualism Language and Cognition 5 (1) 39ndash68

Muysken P (2000) Bilingual Speech Cambridge UK Cambridge University PressOlsen L (1997) Made in America Immigrant Students in our Public Schools New York

The New PressPenalosa F (1980) Chicano Sociolinguistics Rowly MA Newbury HousePfaff CW (1979) Constraints on language mixing Intrasentential code-switching and

borrowing in SpanishEnglish Language 55 (2) 291ndash318Pfaff CW and Chavez L (1986) SpanishEnglish code-switching literary reections

of natural discourse In R Von Bardebelen D Briesenmeister and J Bruce-Novoa(eds) Missions in Conict Essays on US-Mexican Relations and Chicano Culture (pp229ndash254) Tubingen Gunter Narr Verlag

Platzack C (1996) The initial hypothesis of syntax A minimalist perspective on langu-


age acquisition and attrition In H Clahsen (ed) Generative Perspectives on LanguageAcquisition (pp 369ndash414) Amsterdam Benjamins

Poplack S (1980) Sometimes Irsquoll start a sentence in Spanish y termino en espanolToward a typology of code-switching In J Amastae and L ElWas-Olivares (eds)Spanish in the United States Sociolinguistic Aspects (pp 230ndash263) Cambridge UKCambridge University Press

Poplack S (1981) Syntactic structure and social function of code-switching In R Duran(ed) Latino Language and Communicative Behavior (pp 169ndash184) Norwood NJABLEX Publishing

Rakowsky A (1989) A study of intra-sentential code-switching in Spanish-Englishbilinguals and second language learners PhD thesis Brown University

Romaine S (1995) Bilingualism Cambridge MA BlackwellSeliger H and Vago R (1991) Introduction In H Seliger and R Vago (eds) First

Language Attrition Cambridge UK Cambridge University PressSeliger H (1996) Primary language attrition in the context of bilingualism In W

Ritchie and T Bhatia (eds) Handbook of Second Language Acquisition (pp 605ndash625)New York Academic Press

Silva Corvalan C (1986) Bilingualism and language contact Language 62 (3) 587ndash608Silva Corvalan C (1988) Oral narratives along the Spanish-English bilingual con-

tinuum In J Staczek (ed) On Spanish Portuguese Catalan Linguistics (pp 172ndash184)Washington DC Georgetown University Press

Silva Corvalan C (1994) Language Contact and Change Spanish in Los Angeles OxfordUK Oxford University Press

Sridhar SN and Sridhar K (1980) The syntax and psycholinguistics of bilingual code-mixing Canadian Journal of Psychology 34 (4) 407ndash416

Thomason S and Kaufman T (1988) Language Contact Creolization and GeneticLinguistics Berkeley Los Angeles University of California Press

Timm LA (1975) Spanish-English code-switching El por que and how-not-to RomancePhilology 28 (4) 473ndash482

Timm LA (1993) Bilingual code-switching An overview of research In B MerinoH Trueba and F Samaniego (eds) Language and Culture in Learning (pp 94ndash112)Bristol PA The Falmer Press

Toribio AJ (2000a) Migrant language Spanish language variation and lossUnpublished manuscript The Pennsylvania State University

Toribio AJ (2000b) Code-switching and minority language attrition In R Leow andC Sanz (eds) L1 and L2 Acquisition of Spanish (pp 174ndash193) Somerville MACascadilla Press

Toribio AJ (2001a) On the emergence of code-switching competence BilingualismLanguage and Cognition 4 (3) 203ndash231

Toribio AJ (2001b) Accessing Spanish-English code-switching competence Inter-national Journal of Bilingualism 5 (4) 403ndash436

Toribio AJ (2002) Spanish-English code-switching among US Latinos InternationalJournal of the Sociology of Language 158 89ndash119

Toribio AJ (2003a forthcoming) The social signicance of Spanish language loyaltyThe Bilingual Review

Toribio AJ (2003b forthcoming) Unilingual code and bilingual mode The Spanishof Spanish-English bilinguals International Journal of Bilingualism (special issue AdBackus editor)

Toribio AJ (2004 forthcoming) Convergence as an optimization strategy of bilingualspeech Evidence from code-switching Bilingualism Language and Cognition (Specialissue Bilingualism and convergence)

Toribio AJ and Rubin EJ (1996) Code-switching in generative grammar In J Jensenand A Roca (eds) Spanish in Contact (pp 203ndash226) Cambridge MA CascadillaPress

Toribio AJ and Vaquera Vasquez SR (1995) Bringing chaos to order Unpublishedmanuscript presented at The Rocky Mountain Council for Latin American Studiesand the Pacic Coast Council for Latin American Studies joint conference


Torres L (1997) Puerto Rican Discourse A Sociolinguistic Study of a New York SuburbMahwah NJ L Erlbaum Associates

Vago R (1991) Paradigmatic regularity in rst language attrition In H Seliger andR Vago (eds) First Language Attrition (pp 241ndash251) Cambridge UK CambridgeUniversity Press

Valdes G (1981) Code-switching as a deliberate verbal strategy A microanalysis ofdirect and indirect requests among Chicano bilingual speakers In R Duran (ed)Latino Language and Communicative Behavior (pp 95ndash108) Norwood NJ Ablex Press

Valdes G (1988) The language situation of Mexican-Americans In SL McKay andS-LC Wong (eds) Language Diversity Problem or Resource (pp 111ndash139) New YorkNewbury House Publishers

Valdes G (2000) Bilingualism and language use among Mexican Americans In SLMcKay and S-L C Wong (eds) New Immigrants in the United States (pp 99ndash136)Cambridge UK University Press

Valdes G and Figucroa R (1994) Bilingualism and Testing A Special Case of BiasNorwood NJ Ablex

Valdes-Fallis G (1976) Social interaction and code-switching patterns In G Keller RTeschner and S Viera (eds) Bilingualism in the Bicentennial and Beyond (pp 52ndash85)Jamaica NY Bilingual Press

Wald B (1988) Research on dialects Implications for linguistic theory In J Ornstein-Galicia G Green and D Bixler-Marquez (eds) Research Issues and Problems in UnitedStates Spanish Latin American and Southwestern Varieties (pp 57ndash73) Brownsville TXPan American University at Brownsville

Walsh C (1991) Pedagogy and the Struggle for Voice Issues of Language Power and School-ing for Puerto Ricans New York Bergin and Garvey

Widdowson HG (1994) The ownership of English TESOL Quarterly 28 (2) 377ndash388Woolard KA (1992) Language convergence and language death as social processes

In NC Dorian (ed) Investigating Obsolescence Studies in Language Contraction andDeath (pp 365ndash367) Cambridge UK Cambridge University Press

Woolford E (1984) On the application of Wh-movement and inversion in code-switching sentences Revue Quebecoise de Linguistique 14 (3) 77ndash86

Woolford E (1985) Bilingual code-switching and syntactic theory Linguistic Inquiry 14(1) 520ndash536

Zabaleta F (2000) Aspectos morfosintacticos del espanol como lengua materna deuniversitarios californianos In A Roca (ed) Research on Spanish in the United StatesLinguistic Issues and Challenges 360ndash376 Somerville MA Cascadilla Press

Zentella AC (1981) Hablamos los dos We speak both Growing up bilingual in elBarrio PhD thesis University of Pennsylvania

Zentella AC (1997) Growing up Bilingual Malden MA Blackwell PublishersZentella AC (1998) Multiple codes multiple identities Puerto Rican children in New

York City In S Hoyle and C Temple Adger (eds) Kids Talk Strategic Language Usein Later Childhood (pp 95ndash112) Oxford UK Oxford University Press

Zentella AC (2000) Puerto Ricans in the United States Confronting the linguisticsrepercussions of colonialism In SL McKay and S-L C Wong (eds) New Immigrantsin the United States (pp 99ndash164) Cambridge UK University Press


However as lamented by Zentella (1998 2000) it is also indeed much toofrequently attested that in the lsquolinguistic logicrsquo of US society heritage Spanishis a negative carryover that must be cancelled out and the would-be benetof possessing and deploying Spanish alongside English is equated with zero

A teacher comes up to you and tells you lsquoNo no You know that is althy language nothing but bad words and bad thoughts in thatlanguagersquo I mean they are telling you that your language is bad (quotedin Salazar 1970 cited in Crawford 1992)

Those poor kids come to school speaking a hodgepodge They are allmixed up and donrsquot know any language well As a result they canrsquoteven think clearly (quoted in Walsh 1991 106)

The present article elaborates a linguistically informed assessment of thecontact Spanish contact English and Spanish-English bilingual speech of heri-tage Spanish speakers in the United States devoting attention to bilingualdevelopment and deployment and to several phenomena of language contactand interaction among others inter-linguistic inuence or transferenceespecially salient in early stages of learning codeswitching the alternatinguse of two language codes and convergence the increased equivalencebetween two languages or language varieties3 The survey will make evidentthat rather than compensating for linguistic deciency lsquoillicit language actsrsquosignal the strategic and efcient use of linguistic and cognitive resources inthe appropriation and management of two language systems

The paper is organised as follows The discussion is deliberated in theexposition of relevant research in bilingual codeswitching English-langu-age development heritage language decline and loss and contact-inducedconvergence together with illustrative contact English contact Spanish andSpanish-English bilingual samples culled from the literature The work endswith the presentation of three activities suitable for classroom use that mayfurther advance educatorsrsquo appreciation of the speech practices of Spanish-English bilinguals and in so doing dispel certain misconceptions of thelinguistic abilities of heritage Spanish speakers in the United States

Bilingual Speech Practices

Spanglish is the language of border diplomacy (Guillermo Gomez Pena)

In most bilingual communities members nd themselves situated along acontinuum that induces different lsquolanguage modesrsquo (Grosjean 1998) within alsquobilingual rangersquo (Valdes 2000)4 For instance Zentella (1981 1997) reportsthat in her long-term participant study of the linguistic practices of el bloquea Puerto-Rican community in el barrio of East Harlem children could beobserved to speak English with each other while shifting to Spanish in defer-ence to their elders as illustrated in the recorded exchange in (1) For thesechildren Spanish and English together constitute their linguistic competencein a singular sense and their linguistic performance will draw primarily uponEnglish or Spanish as required by the lsquoobservablesrsquo of the speech situationeg pragmatic norms specic setting and participants5














































































Bilingual Spanish




























































































































































































































































Bilingual Spanish















































































































































































spanish/english speech practices: bringing chaos to - u-system

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