In the U.S./Mexico borderlands, local language varieties face frequent discrimination and delegitimization or "linguistic terrorism." The present study uses the three-level positioning framework to analyze how young adults in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in south Texas construct borderland identities by positioning themselves with respect…

Drawing on linguistic anthropological notions of language ideologies and sociolinguistic approaches to stance, this study examines the meaning-making resources through which Spanish heritage language (HL) learners orient toward ideological perspectives on language value and linguistic expertise in classroom interaction. Part of a larger…

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…

A method for analyzing acquisition-like patterns in the English consonants used by Spanish-English bilinguals is presented which allows a distinction to be made between individual and group phenomena. An analysis of a bilingual community in southern Texas shows that there is a continuum of use of the standard English consonants not occurring in…

Explored differences in the spoken English of Texas women, listening to individual women rather than to populations or samples. The study attempted to determine how each woman used available linguistic resources, and it pointed out that every speaker is idiosyncratic and a variety of factors bear on how people talk. (SM)

Discusses verbal performances of East Austin (Texas) Chicano children; how their attitudes about language influence their choice of English-Spanish codes, the verbal code favored being Spanish-English code-switching; their ability to maintain code separation; and how their two major cultural heritages are fully exploited to create a resolutely…