English is often assumed to be the national language in the US and the global language in the world; yet such views fail to address the complex linguistic repertoires of people living in linguistically heterogeneous places even within the US. Spotlighting a southwestern US border town, we provide a critique of both nation-state-language ideology,…

When two or more languages are part of a child's world, we are presented with a rich opportunity to learn something about language in general and about how the mind works. In this book, Norbert Francis examines the development of bilingual proficiency and the different kinds of competence that come together in making up its component parts. In…

This article presents an ethnographic study of how bilingual teachers and children use their home language, TexMex, to mediate academic content and standard languages. From the premise that TESOL educators can benefit from a fuller understanding of students' linguistic repertoires, the study describes language practices in a second-grade classroom…

This dissertation project examines the language contact situation of Chipilo, a Veneto-Spanish bilingual community of immigrant origin in central Mexico, focusing both on the social motivations for the sustained bilingualism observed and the linguistic outcomes in the Spanish of the community. Chipilo is a unique community in that Veneto, a…

Moroleon, Guanajuato (Mexico), is an industrial city on the Mexican Plateau. People from the surrounding hamlets known as rancherias frequently seek employment in the city. However, many men with low levels of education travel to Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, to work on mushroom farms. A study explored the use of English in these two communities.…

Documents attitudes toward English, Spanish, and Spanish-English code-switching in Juarez, Mexico. This paper refutes the notion that there are two orientations--integrative and instrumental--toward English as a second language, but it supports assumptions regarding the relationship between attitudes and use and the impact of local milieu on…

A Chicana bilingual teacher from Arizona lived with a middle-class Mexican family during a 5-week Mexican immersion program. Her complaints about "harsh reactions" toward her and her Spanish showed how her use of a few stigmatized characteristics of nonstandard Spanish were judged by standard Spanish speakers to indicate an uneducated…

A discussion of language policy formation and planning in Mexico focuses on its multilingual/multicultural character and covers the following: turn from national integration to ethnic revival; indigenous successes following the Declaration of Patzcuaro; some problems and solutions regarding the current bilingual/bicultural education policy.…

Illustrates how women from the frontier of Laredo, Texas, use, describe, and view the hybrid of Spanish and English spoken at the borderlands as a result of culture and language contact among Mexicans of various backgrounds and Anglos. Categorizes the attitudes toward language choice into intraethnic and interethnic classifications. (32…

This study analyzes the use and distribution patterns of the Discourse Marker (DM) "You Know" in interviews with members of a Hispanic folklore dance troupe. The study attempts to demonstrate how the use of this DM expresses identity among Hispanic females and if its use is affected by the ethnic labels each speaker uses. By assessing…

Describes features of articulatory shortcuts discovered among middle class, educated native speakers of Spanish in Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador. It is maintained that these features should be taught to students of Spanish in order that they may understand colloquial Spanish speech. (AM)

Spanish, English, and American Indian languages in the southwestern United States and northern Mexico and bilingualism and language contact in the region are addressed in a collection of articles. Approaches to research in the languages of this region are discussed in articles by Valdes, Lope Blanch, and Brandt. Cultural and sociolinguistic…

A collection of essays on "the other" in discourse includes: "The Rhetoric of Othering" (Stephen Harold Riggins); "Political Discourse and Racism: Describing Others in Western Parliaments" (Teun A. van Dijk); "'Das Ausland' and Anti-Semitic Discourse: The Discursive Construction of the Other" (Ruth Wodak);…