This paper reports on an investigation into the reactions of 147 participants of various ethnicities to a language practice in the USA that has been characterized as Mock Spanish, a special register in which Spanish words or phrases are used to evoke humor by indexing an often unflattering image of Spanish speakers. Research questions include…

This paper reports on an investigation of writing in Spanish in the lives of U.S. Latinos. Twenty-two semi-structured interviews were conducted with informants recruited from among students and former students of high school and college Spanish courses. The interviews were transcribed and coded for concepts and emergent themes (Rubin & Rubin,…

Strategies for deciding which language to use when forms part of the sociolinguistic competence of speakers who can speak more than one language. Language choices are shaped by a number of factors, including linguistic proficiency of both speaker and interlocutor, the ingroup or outgroup status of each, and the setting in which an exchange takes…