LINGUIST List 20.683
Wed Mar 04 2009
Diss: Anthro Ling/Socioling: Vermy: 'Language Exchanges: The value ...'
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Language Exchanges: The value of Spanish in Los Angeles
Message 1: Language Exchanges: The value of Spanish in Los Angeles
Date: 04-Mar-2009
From: a vermy <amvermyucla.edu>
Subject: Language Exchanges: The value of Spanish in Los Angeles
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Institution: University of California, Los Angeles Program: Department of Romance Linguistics and Literature Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2008
Author: A. Michael Vermy
Dissertation Title: Language Exchanges: The value of Spanish in Los Angeles
Linguistic Field(s): Anthropological Linguistics Sociolinguistics
Subject Language(s): English (eng) Spanish (spa)
Dissertation Director(s): Claudia Parodi-Lewin John Dagenais Edward Tuttle Antonio Carlos Quicoli
Dissertation Abstract:
Drawing upon theoretical ideas from sociology, linguistic anthropology and social psychology, and placing them within the debate of language selection, this study investigates the attitudes of native Spanish speakers towards non-native Spanish speakers in Los Angeles, California to demonstrate how the value of Spanish influences the linguistic exchanges between native and non-native speakers. I interviewed 50 bilingual females of Mexican origin in order to address their Spanish and English language use, the beliefs they have towards their dialect, and what they think of non-native Spanish speakers (including their opinion of the non-natives' language variety and accents). I demonstrate how the participants' educational level and their language maintenance influence their opinions towards the non-native Spanish speakers. I also establish how native language perception impacts accent fondness. This elucidates how the attitudes one has towards language assigns it a certain value and how these attitudes determine the market value of Spanish in the linguistic market.
Following Bourdieu, I posit that if the native Spanish speakers correlate the non-native Spanish speaker's dialect with a variety of Spanish they do not possess (the standard variety of Spanish) it affects how they respond to the non-native. I show if the native Spanish speakers perceive the non-native Spanish speaker's mother tongue to be English, and if said native Spanish speakers esteem English more highly than they regard Spanish, this determines the language they choose to speak with the non-native speaker. I confirm how so-called stereotypes influence the way individuals interact with one another since accent perception is part of the processes that shape how native speakers interact with non-native speakers. I explain how language attitudes show that the language exchanges between native and non-native are necessarily associations of symbolic power.
I use as a point of departure Bourdieu's notions of habitus and symbolic and cultural capital together with iconicity, power and languages games and relate them all to the concepts of language identity/loyalty to establish how they affect the language maintenance of native speakers and their perception of non-native speech. This is a conglomerate of measurable factors that influence the value of Spanish in Los Angeles.
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