Mexican American English Dialect a.k.a. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

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Mexican American English Dialect a.k.a.

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ip] for 'cheap' & 'sheep' R pronounced as flap [???i] for 'ready' ... 'Next week we have vacations' 'until' sometimes used as a negative 'Is Bob here? ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Mexican American English Dialect a.k.a.


1
Mexican American English Dialecta.k.a. Chicano
English
  • Jesse Fox
  • Claudia Giangrande

2
What is Chicano English?
  • American English Dialect
  • Used by Mexican-Americans (Chicanos)
  • Spoken mostly in California and the Southwest
  • Chicano English may be
  • - learned as a second language
  • the native English of Mexican-Americans
  • spoken by bilingual people
  • spoken without knowing any Spanish

3
Origins
  • Immigration from Mexico to California and other
  • parts of the Southwest
  • Communities developed of Spanish speakers
  • many began to learn English
  • Spoke a non-native variety (common for learners
    of
  • a language)
  • included sounds and grammatical constructions
    from their
  • native Spanish
  • Children of immigrants grew up speaking both
  • languages
  • Communities stabilized ? new dialect of English
  • emerged

4
Differences from Other English Dialects
  • Four factors occurring over several generations
  • Spanish influences
  • Some learning errors become established
  • Influence from other English dialects
  • Independent developments
  • Challenges in identifying Chicano English
  • Difficult to differentiate contemporary and
    historical
  • Spanish influences among
  • 1st generation learners
  • Bilinguals of varying competence
  • Near-monolingual English-speaking
    Mexican-Americans

5
Distinguishing Chicano English
  • Common misconceptions
  • It is learner English, imperfect and non-native
  • It is the accent of a native Spanish speaker
  • Chicano English is a stable and fully formed
    dialect
  • Linguistically structurally equivalent to other
    English dialects
  • Many Speakers of Chicano English are not
    bilingual and may not know any Spanish at all
  • Mexican-American speakers are native and fluent
    English speakers
  • Some happened to learn a non-standard variant
    with clear traces of Spanish influence

6
Distinguishing Chicano English (cont.)
  • Some features cannot be definitively attributed
    to Spanish
  • Ex multiple negation
  • She didnt tell me nothing about that
  • Ella no me dijo nada sobre eso
  • Could come from either Spanish or other
    non-standard dialects
  • Chicano English may also be influenced by other
    American
  • dialects
  • Local influence ? California variety (a.k.a.
    Valley Girl dialect)
  • Other influence ? African-American English

7
Speaking Chicano English
  • No knowledge of Spanish is necessary
  • Ex Students listened to sound clips of bilingual
    and monolingual speakers of Chicano English
  • ? were unable to distinguish between the two
    types of speakers
  • Not everyone from Mexican-American communities
    speaks Chicano English
  • Wide range of styles within Chicano English
  • i.e. some middle class Mexican-Americans may
    speak a variety more grammatically similar to
    standard dialects, others may not speak Chicano
    English at all
  • The variety spoken by young gang members
    incorporates additional vocabulary not used by
    other members of the community

8
Characteristics of Chicano English
  • Consonant variations
  • Devoicing of z
  • isi for easy
  • w?s for was
  • s of present sounds like c of decent
  • Devoicing of word-final v
  • l?f for love
  • h?f for have
  • waifs for wives
  • laifs for lives
  • Devoicing of final d
  • hit for hid

Replace v with b lib for live inbait
for invite Pronounce th as d, t, s, or
f d?t for that tink, fink, or sink
for think May use y for j? and j for
y yo?kin for joking y?t for
jet y?s for just d?u for you d??t
for yet
9
  • Consonant variations (cont.)
  • Word-final M becomes n or ?
  • w?lc?n or w?lc?? for welcome
  • G sound d? becomes ?
  • ?ein? for change
  • shicken for chicken
  • /t?/ merges with /?/
  • ?ip for cheap sheep
  • R pronounced as flap
  • ???i for ready
  • Final Consonant Deletion In Spanish, the only
    consonants that may occur in word-final position
    are n, l, s, r, and y
  • other word-final single consonants would
    therefore be unfamiliar to some Chicano English
    speakers
  • most ? mos
  • felt ? fell
  • start ? star

10
Vowel Variations
  • Merge æ and ?
  • man and men both sound like men
  • I and i merge into i
  • ship and sheep both sound like sheep

11
Other Variations
  • Stress and intonation changes
  • anticipáte instead of antícipàte
  • rising sentence-final intonation for statements
  • Confusion between mass nouns and count nouns
  • Next week we have vacations
  • until sometimes used as a negative
  • Is Bob here? until 300 (not until 300)
  • Word barely is used to mean recently
  • Dont leave you barely got here!

12
Other Variations (cont.)
  • Code-switching common among speakers highly
    fluent in both languages (Spanglish)
  • Esun little boy (its a little boy)
  • Does Chicano English influence other American
    English dialects?
  • Changes in pronounciation allude to possible
    Chicano English influences but this cannot be
    confirmed
  • i.e. going changing to go-ween among
    Californian students
  • Use of Spanish lexicon ? even in speakers who do
    not speak Spanish
  • ándale hasta la vista
  • Type of identity marker

13
RESOURCES
  • http//www.pbs.org/speak/seatosea/americanvarietie
    s/chicano/
  • http//en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicano_English
  • http//www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O29-CHICANOENGLIS
    H.html
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