Intergenerational Spanish Language Transmission: Attitudes, Motivations and Linguistic Practices in 2 Mexican American Communities
Velazquez, Maria Isabel
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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/86159
Description
Title
Intergenerational Spanish Language Transmission: Attitudes, Motivations and Linguistic Practices in 2 Mexican American Communities
Author(s)
Velazquez, Maria Isabel
Issue Date
2008
Doctoral Committee Chair(s)
Escobar, Anna Maria
Department of Study
Spanish
Discipline
Spanish
Degree Granting Institution
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Degree Name
Ph.D.
Degree Level
Dissertation
Keyword(s)
Hispanic American Studies
Language
eng
Abstract
This study is an investigation into parental motivations, attitudes, and linguistic practices related to the intergenerational transmission of Spanish in two Mexican American communities, and is the first qualitative Midwest/Southwest comparison of two communities on different ends of the bilingualism spectrum: El Paso, Texas and the neighborhood of La Villita, in Chicago. The goal of this project was to examine how a speaker's choice to transmit or not her native language to her children is impacted by her community's linguistic marketplace, or what Mufwene (2008) calls the community's linguistic ecology. Data was collected through the use of five instruments designed to garner information regarding speakers' perceptions of ethnolinguistic vitality for Spanish in their community; their attitudes and motivations toward Spanish language use and transmission, family practices that could foster or hinder Spanish development, household language use, and an analysis of the mother's network of social interaction. While parents in both communities expressed positive attitudes about the use of Spanish in their community and their household, results suggest that families which provided their children with greater opportunities to develop oral and written competence where those in which the mother perceived that Spanish as an important component of their children's identity, and an instrument to access future economic opportunities.
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