Trekking Linguistic Cultural Terrain: Bilingual Speakers and Diverse Latino Cultures

Varland, Sarah

Permalink

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/25975 Copy

Description

Title

Trekking Linguistic Cultural Terrain: Bilingual Speakers and Diverse Latino Cultures

Author(s)

Varland, Sarah

Issue Date

2011-08

Keyword(s)

• Bilingual
• Latino, Culture

Abstract

Spanish speakers come from diverse types of cultures across the world, which are sometimes conflated into a generalized Latino culture. Interviews with three Spanish-English bilingual students at University of Illinois chart participants’ perceptions and ideas of this conflation. Two are international students from Ecuador and Venezuela, and the other is an American who studied abroad in Spain. Their discussions thread through the importance of humor in bilingual communications, humor as a combatant to ignorance of diverse Latino cultures, and reclamations of the nuances of their cultures, as defined under the broad umbrella of Latino culture. The ethnography also charts the author’s transition from uninformed to aware of diversity in the Latino world. Larger ramifications imply that language instruction in younger grades, paired with University of Illinois’s well-established study abroad programs, could foster engagement with diverse cultures, and specifically varied Latino cultures, for our students.

Series/Report Name or Number

• ENGL401 Spring 2011: Introduction to the Story of the English Language
• Professor Catherine Viera

Type of Resource

text

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/25975

Owning Collections