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- All Subjects: Bilingualism
- Creators: Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro
Description
ABSTRACT This thesis analyzes the Spanish (SPA) and English (ENG) code-switching (CS) at Latino Vibe (LV), a bilingual radio station in Phoenix; Arizona from a sociolinguistic perspective. Using Gumperz's (1982) Conversational Functions of CS, Myers-Scotton's (1993) Markedness Model, and Bell's (1984) Audience Design model, this thesis intends to evaluate which one of these sociolinguistic models is the most accurate to explain the SPA-ENG CS at LV. In January 2009, the data were collected in a two week period of programming of the show "José y Tina en la mañana" (José and Tina in the morning), and then transcribed. This qualitative study consisted in analyzing the same subset of the data, corresponding to ten days. The model with the greater predictably of the types of CS and their causes would be considered the most appropriate for the data studied. The results show that CS is common and that codeswitched utterances are the most representative at LV. The conclusion also states that out of the three models, Gumperz's accounts better for the data than the other two. It explains more clearly the reasons why LV announcers code-switch in particular social contexts, and the important role of these switches during their interaction in this bilingual radio station. KEYWORDS: Code-switching, bilingual radio, Spanish-English
ContributorsBocanegra, Olga Lucía (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / García, Carmen (Committee member) / Lafford, Barbara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2012
Description
ABSTRACT
Spanish is a null subject language that admits the expression or omission of lexical subjects. As well, the expression of the subject argument may take place pre or post verbally (Española, R. A., 2009). This variation of the subject’s position is not a random phenomenon; it tends to depend on syntactic and semantic preferences and restrictions.
This investigation analyzes pre and post verbal nominal and pronominal subject position in the colloquial speech of Spanish-English bilinguals of Mexican descent in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The phenomenon’s analysis considers linguistic factors such as the syntactical and semantically classification of the verb type as copulative, transitive and intransitive; the subject only in the third person, the number as singular and plural, new or given information in the discourse, and the participants’ self evaluation of their bilingual dominance in one language (Dunn, & Fox Tree, 2009). As well, social extra-linguistic factors are considered such as gender, age group, educational level and time in the USA.
Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith, 2005) was the multivariable analysis program used for the ranking of the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that tend to influence the subject’s position.
The formulated hypotheses were that post verbal subject placement will occur in sentences with inaccusative verbs, and where the participants in their discourse give new information. As well, the participants with English bilingual dominance and the participants born or arrived in the USA before their eleventh birthday will reflect a higher index of pre verbal subjects.
This community of speakers favored the subject in preverbal position with copulative, transitive and inergative verbs; however preferred the subject in post verbal position with inaccusative verbs. As well, the post verbal position of the subject also was favored when new information was introduced in the discourse. The age factor proved to be significant with the older age Spanish dominant group, selecting the post verbal position significantly more than the middle age Spanish dominant and young age English dominant groups respectively. This could be interpreted as a reflection of an initial movement in the direction of the SV order of the dominant language.
Spanish is a null subject language that admits the expression or omission of lexical subjects. As well, the expression of the subject argument may take place pre or post verbally (Española, R. A., 2009). This variation of the subject’s position is not a random phenomenon; it tends to depend on syntactic and semantic preferences and restrictions.
This investigation analyzes pre and post verbal nominal and pronominal subject position in the colloquial speech of Spanish-English bilinguals of Mexican descent in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area. The phenomenon’s analysis considers linguistic factors such as the syntactical and semantically classification of the verb type as copulative, transitive and intransitive; the subject only in the third person, the number as singular and plural, new or given information in the discourse, and the participants’ self evaluation of their bilingual dominance in one language (Dunn, & Fox Tree, 2009). As well, social extra-linguistic factors are considered such as gender, age group, educational level and time in the USA.
Goldvarb X (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith, 2005) was the multivariable analysis program used for the ranking of the linguistic and extra-linguistic factors that tend to influence the subject’s position.
The formulated hypotheses were that post verbal subject placement will occur in sentences with inaccusative verbs, and where the participants in their discourse give new information. As well, the participants with English bilingual dominance and the participants born or arrived in the USA before their eleventh birthday will reflect a higher index of pre verbal subjects.
This community of speakers favored the subject in preverbal position with copulative, transitive and inergative verbs; however preferred the subject in post verbal position with inaccusative verbs. As well, the post verbal position of the subject also was favored when new information was introduced in the discourse. The age factor proved to be significant with the older age Spanish dominant group, selecting the post verbal position significantly more than the middle age Spanish dominant and young age English dominant groups respectively. This could be interpreted as a reflection of an initial movement in the direction of the SV order of the dominant language.
ContributorsVelasco, Francisco Javier (Author) / Cerron-Palomino, Alvaro (Thesis advisor) / González-López, Verónica (Committee member) / Beaudrie, Sara (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2015
Description
Code-switching, a bilingual language phenomenon, which may be defined as the concurrent use of two or more languages by fluent speakers is frequently misunderstood and stigmatized. Given that the majority of the world's population is bilingual rather than monolingual, the study of code-switching provides a fundamental window into human cognition and the systematic structural outcomes of language contact. Intra-sentential code-switching is said to systematically occur, constrained by the lexicons of each respective language. In order to access information about the acceptability of certain switches, linguists often elicit grammaticality judgments from bilingual informants. In current linguistic research, grammaticality judgment tasks are often scrutinized on account of the lack of stability of responses to individual sentences. Although this claim is largely motivated by research on monolingual strings under a variety of variable conditions, the stability of code-switched grammaticality judgment data given by bilingual informants has yet to be systematically investigated. By comparing grammaticality judgment data from 3 groups of German-English bilinguals, Group A (N=50), Group B (N=34), and Group C (N=40), this thesis investigates the stability of grammaticality judgments in code-switching over time, as well as a potential difference in judgments between judgment data for spoken and written code-switching stimuli. Using a web-based survey, informants were asked to give ratings of each code-switched token. The results were computed and findings from a correlated groups t test attest to the stability of code-switched judgment data over time with a p value of .271 and to the validity of the methodologies currently in place. Furthermore, results from the study also indicated that no statistically significant difference was found between spoken and written judgment data as computed with an independent groups t test resulting in a p value of .186, contributing a valuable fact to the body of data collection practices in research in bilingualism. Results from this study indicate that there are significant differences attributable to language dominance for specific token types, which were calculated using an ANOVA test. However, when using group composite scores of all tokens, the ANOVA measure returned a non-significant score of .234, suggesting that bilinguals with differing language dominances rank in a similar manner. The findings from this study hope to help clarify current practices in code-switching research.
ContributorsGrabowski, Jane (Author) / Gilfillan, Daniel (Thesis advisor) / Macswan, Jeff (Thesis advisor) / Ghanem, Carla (Committee member) / Arizona State University (Publisher)
Created2011