Chicana Language and Identity in a Primarily White Institution
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2016
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Swarthmore College. Dept. of Linguistics
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Thesis (B.A.)
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Full copyright to this work is retained by the student author. It may only be used for non-commercial, research, and educational purposes. All other uses are restricted.
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Abstract
Past research has shown that prejudice persists towards speakers of English with an
accent (Lippi-Green 2011), non-standard English dialects (Mendoza-Denton 1999), and even
borrowed words pronounced in their language of origin (Carr 2014). These findings beg the
question: what effect does language discrimination have on day-to-day speech? Furthermore,
very little research has been conducted to understand the speech patterns of individuals in
environments where they are not a part of the majority racial or ethnic population. When these
two factors are combined, the threat to speakers increases as their languages lose value in certain
communities. In this study, I analyze the effect of both of these elements, language prejudice and
social environment, on Chicana speech.
This study explores the language use of a group of four female Mexican-American
students within different spaces at Swarthmore College, an elite, private, small liberal arts
college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. As an academic setting where non-standard dialects are
not always welcome, the menace of language discrimination is present and an issue that
marginalized students often encounter. Despite the obstacles, this group of speakers formed their
own speech community, where they freely employed mixed codes and varieties of Spanglish, in
order to navigate the complexities of their identities through their language.
Building upon previous work, this study specifically analyzes the language use of one
Mexican-American/Chicana speech community, including cod eswitching amongst speakers in
regards to borrowed Spanish words, and the effects of different environments on phonetic
realizations in Chicano/Mexican-American speech. Additionally, this work connects to some of
the deeper issues that their language use reveals - including identity, heritage, and belonging.