Chicano English
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Chicano English is a dialect of American English used by Chicanos (persons of Mexican descent in the United States). One major variation of Chicano English is Tejano English, used mainly in south Texas. It is mistakenly referred to as Spanglish, which is not a recognized dialect of English but rather a mixing of English and Spanish.
Phonology
Thomas Veatch's linguistic study of the surface vowel system of Los Angeles Chicano English found it to be phonologically indistinguishable from the surrounding Anglo English dialect, except for what could be termed minor features. The views that Chicanos are not really full-fledged English speakers, or even that they speak a form of English that includes features taken from Spanish, are not supported by any data. Instead, like other immigrant groups in the US, they acquire the matrix English dialect with native-speaker perfection within the first native-born generation. However, when such groups are ghettoized, living in separate, ethnically concentrated neighborhoods similarly to, at various historical times, Jews in East Manhattan, Chinese in San Francisco's Chinatown, and others, then they commonly seem to develop novel identifying features of a new ethnic dialect. Intonational features distinctive of the dialect are mentioned in Santa Ana 1991. A lowering, perhaps merger of /eh/ toward /ae/ in the context of following /l/, in words like elevator which may be pronounced with an initial syllable that rhymes with pal, has been reported. Neither of these features exist in the Spanish of the immigrant population; they were created by English speakers for their own purposes as English speakers, rather than imported through some imperfect kind of assimilation or failure of English language learning. Veatch's study used Chicano English to support his general view of accent in language, that the average phonetic realizations (in F1-F2 space) of the acoustic nuclei of the phonological vowel classes were described by several rules of phonetic implementation. Veatch also found that for Chicano English, as also found in all other English dialects that he studied, the effects of phrasal stress on the performance of vowel production, as investigated through F1 and F2 measurements, resulted in stress reduction shifts vowels in the direction of a high and somewhat front of center reduction target[link]
Well-known speakers of Chicano English
See also
References
- Liu, Jennifer [Anchor dissects American English] Stanford Daily, February 23, 2005
- Veatch, Thomas [Los Angeles Chicano English] (2005)
- Ulanoff, Sharon, Vega-Castaneda, Lillian, [Chicano English: What is it? Who speaks it? Examining Social, Cultural, Linguistic Features that Impact the Schooling of Speakers of Chicano English] (2005)
- Briggs, Charles L. Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art. University of Pennsylvania Press conduct and communication series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, (1988).
- Form and Function in Chicano English. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, (1984).
- Penfield, Joyce. Chicano English: An Ethnic Contact Dialect. Varieties of English around the world, General series; v. 7. Amsterdam; Philadelphia: J. Benjamins Pub. Co., (1985).
- Sanchez, Rosaura. Chicano Discourse: Sociohistoric Perspectives. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House Publishers, (1983).
| Topics related to Chicanos and Mexican-Americans |
|
|---|---|
| Terms: Chicano · La Raza · Latino · Mexican-American · Hispanic | |
| Pre-Chicano Movement: Mexican-American History · Mexican-American War · Sleepy Lagoon Trial · Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo · Zoot Suit Riots | |
| Chicano Movement: Aztlán · Catolicos Por La Raza · Chicanismo · Chicano Blowouts · Chicano Moratorium · El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán · El Plan de Santa Bárbara · Farm Worker Rights Campaign · Land Grant Struggle · Colegio César Chávez | |
| Supreme Court Cases: Hernandez v. Texas · Plyler v. Doe · Mendez v. Westminster | |
| Culture: Chicano Park · Chicano rap · Chicano rock · Cholo · Estrada Courts Murals · Lowrider · Pachuco · Teatro Campesino · Tortilla art · Zoot suit | |
| Lists and Categories: List of Caló words and expressions · List of Chicano poets · Majority Hispanic U.S. Cities · Notable Chicanos · Notable Hispanic Americans · · | |
| Chicano Languages | |
|
| Chicano Spanish | Nahuatl language | Spanish language | List of Chicano Caló words and expressions | Chicano English | New Mexican Spanish | Spanish in the United States | Ladino | Spanish profanity | Spanglish |
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