Title: Mexican American English Dialect a.k.a.
1Mexican American English Dialecta.k.a. Chicano
English
- Jesse Fox
- Claudia Giangrande
2What 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
3Origins
- 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
4Differences 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
5Distinguishing 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
6Distinguishing 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
7Speaking 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
8Characteristics 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
10Vowel Variations
- Merge æ and ?
- man and men both sound like men
- I and i merge into i
- ship and sheep both sound like sheep
11Other 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!
12Other 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
13RESOURCES
- 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