By Anonymous
For the week where we read about linguistic differences between age groups and generations, we did an activity in class where we talked to a partner about the way we used to speak when we were teenagers. In this activity I talked to my partner who happens to speak Spanish as a first language about how people in my age group used to use Spanish words and phrases, because we thought it made us look cool or funny. Sometimes the Spanish words and phrases were real and sometimes they were not. Then the more I thought about it the more I realized that many age groups in the United States do this, not just teenagers, and it is very common in the popular media. Towards the end of the semester when I was trying to figure out my topic for my final project I was talking to Professor Sarkar about this aforementioned linguistic phenomena, and she told me it’s called mock Spanish and referred me to a good article by Jane Hill (1998) that explains why this is linguistic racism.
This article was enlightening. I learned of a term I had never previously heard of before: linguistic appropriation. This happens when hispanophones who speak Spanglish in public are called impolite, harsh English-only policies are created to restrict their language use, and their accents are criticized whether they truly have a Spanish accent or not, while simultaneously anglophones borrow from Spanish, speak with heavy accents, and carelessly use the language incorrectly without reproach. It is clearly a case of linguistic inequality, in addition to making a mockery of the language and culture and trivializing hispanophones’ contributions to American culture (Hill, 1998).
Real hispanophone code switching, on the other hand, is fascinating and bears no resemblance to mock Spanish. There are many articles that cover Spanglish and what it sounds like. Becker (1997) did a literature review of several of these studies, and it is a good resource for examples of Spanglish. Unfortunately, this bilingualism is not supported in many schools where a monolingual English ideology shapes curriculum planning and assessment. Ofelia Garcia has written extensively about this problem and how translanguaging may be one possible solution. Some of her articles are listed below.
We also read about translanguaging and multiliteracies for this course near the end of the semester. Creese and Blackledge (2010) argued, with evidence from their case studies, that it is not enough to be accepting of people who speak languages other than English. Instead we need to actively cultivate their languages and cultures by developing their first and second languages together rather than as separate monolingualisms. Some examples of this in practice may include a focus on cognates across languages, and multilingual media creation and collaboration projects. Similarly, Giampapa (2010) used a case study to argue for the importance of multiliteracies and presented some examples of how this could be done. One of the teachers in the case study did identity work, dual language writing, and collaborative writing projects with her students. As most teachers know, it is very important for teachers to draw upon their students’ prior knowledge to teach new content, and that should include their language and culture. Rather than being coaxed to leave their language and culture at the schoolhouse door, students should be encouraged to share their wealth of linguistic and cultural knowledge and take pride in that aspect of their identity. That would be helpful to support their bilingualism.
References
Becker, K. (1997). Spanish/English Bilingual Codeswitching: A Syncretic Model. Bilingual Review / La Revista Bilingüe, 22(1), 3-30.
Creese, A., & Blackledge, A. (2010). Translanguaging in the bilingual classroom: A pedagogy for learning and teaching? The Modern Language Journal, 94(1), 103–115.
Garcia, O. (2009). Emergent bilinguals and TESOL: What’s in a name? TESOL Quarterly: A Journal for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages and of Standard English As a Second Dialect,43(2), 322-326.
García, O. (2017). Translanguaging in schools: Subiendo y bajando, bajando y subiendo as afterword. Journal of Language, Identity & Education, 16(4), 256-263
Giampapa, F. (2010). Multiliteracies, pedagogy and identities: Teacher and student voices from a Toronto elementary school. Canadian Journal of Education, 33(2), 407–431.
Hill, J. (1998). Language, Race, and White Public Space. American Anthropologist,100(3), 680-689.
I tend to think that once a country colonises half the planet, their language is public domain. At the same time, though, I do remember feeling uncomfortable with Beiber making so much money off ‘Despacito’ (and then fumbling the lyrics that someone else clearly wrote for him). I feel like I have two ‘Spanish’s in my head – the fancy European language that we could take as an elective in high school, and the Spanish I saw on American TV shows growing up. I understand this dynamic in English – speaking another culture’s version of English is a pretty solid no-no, even in the absence of racial tension (I imagine that it would be very uncomfortable for everyone if I decided to speak with a British accent from now on), but how do you navigate this as a second language learner?
Lauren