Chicano English as America Personified PDF

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This paper discusses chicano English and how it has been developed over time. This is a short assignment given to the class over their dilect of choice. It can be later used for their final project discussing language and America as a melting pot. ...

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Chicano English: A Melting Pot The United States is a melting pot of cultures. It serves as a place where those wishing to leave their native land can discover new opportunities, careers, and lives to lead. The mixture of people from so many nations has created communities where people from a variety of cultures and heritages can live side by side. Any number of people from any place in the world may find a home here. The descendants of Latino, specifically Mexican, people exist within the United States in a culture of their own. Often, they are observed and stamped with stereotypes by those existing in other social classes because of their linguistic mannerisms. However, the Chicano culture and language is something that is developed over time alongside Standard American English (and “American” traditions). Today, the Chicano language is developed by those who are Native English speakers but who are in constant communication with Mexican Spanish. As these individuals grow they retain information around the formation of the languages individually and bring them together to create Chicano English. The language they developed is deemed to be improper at times due to its origin and word usage. The use of codeswitching (alternating between two or more languages while speaking) and changes in intonation within this English dialect make the language seem unintelligible to Standard American English speakers. The Spanish it is paired with also impacts its perception. Chicano English, especially around the border of the United States is based on rural Mexican Spanish (Penfield 9) which is less associated with proper speech because of its intonation and different vocabulary. Since this “ variation of Spanish is non-standard,” (40) it influences how the dialect is accepted not only by native English speakers but by Spanish speakers from other nationalities (beyond Mexican borders).

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Tracking etymology can be a bit difficult for the Chicano-English culture, as many of the words do not belong to certain form of spelling. In fact, it is classified as a “speech community,” in which the language is coined mostly in verbal form rather than written. “The concept of speech community is often debated, partly because it shifts the focus away from linguistic features onto social and cultural traits” (Fredric 110). In the case of Chicano English, social and cultural traits are extremely important, as many of the words listed in the dictionary and those used in the Chicano language focus on objects, people, and concepts that deal especially with their own cultural values. However, some words may be traced in their encounters with other cultures through time. For instance, the names given to the Chicano people group can be traced through the ages to its original form: “Calo.” The progression runs as follows: Calo→ Pachuco Calo→ Cholo→ Cholito “Calo” was a term which originated from Spaniards of the high social class observing gypsies in the area. When the Spaniards came to the Americas, the dress and linguistic features of the people they met reminded them of the gypsies they had witnessed in Spain which resulted in them being given the same name. Later, the word “calo” was revitalized with the addition of “Pachuco” meaning “a male who comes from El Paso” (Penfield and Ornstein-Galicia 11). As the language incorporated abbreviation, “Pachuco Calo” was transformed into “Cholo.” “Cholo” began to mean “one of mixed blood.” It could be used as a derogatory term (when used by groups outside of the Chicano community) or as a sense of pride over one’s culture and language by those within the Chicano community. “Cholito” or “Cholita” became words of endearment towards children. The development of the languages vocabulary is built off snippets from a variety of cultures that impacted Mexican Americans.

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Just as the word was adapted from the Spaniards and altered over time, other parts of the dialect were taken from its neighboring languages. The language’s phonology is dependent on the region it is from just as the vocabulary it develops is. If there is an emphasis on slang because of abbreviations, the misusage of words, or tenses in a community, the person learning that language is more likely to combine those language rules with (Mexican) Spanish rules. It is a dialect that is created when two language communities are brought together and progressively learned by an individual. It is not something that is just picked up out of nowhere. It is the melting of cultures into one, a personification of what American society is meant to be.

Works Consulted Coltharp, Lurline H. “Pachuco, Tirilón, and Chicano.” American Speech, vol. 50, no. 1/2, 1 Apr. 1975, pp. 25–29. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/3087860?ref=searchgateway:e7daf69a138fbed74a60b1c6a29f24e9.

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Cotton, Eleanor G. Spanish in the Americas, Volume One. Georgetown University Press, 1988. “Etimologia.” Stack Exchange: Spanish Language Beta, 2011. Web. Field, Fredric. “Bilingualism in the USA: The Case of the Chicano-Latino Community.” John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2011. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.come/lib/umkc/detail.action?docID=752577 Garcia, Ricardo L. “Toward a Grammar of Chicano English.” The English Journal, vol. 63, no. 3, 1 Mar. 1974, pp. 34–38. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/813844?ref=searchgateway:8be703b747d0e59c5ff98d5abdc01f23

Peckham, Aaron. “Urban Dictionary: Freshest Street Slang Defined.” Urban Dictionary: Freshest Street Slang Defined, Andrews McMeel Pub., 2012. Penfield, Joyce, and Jacob L. Ornstein-Galicia. “Chicano English : An ethnic contact dialect.” John Benjamins Publishing Company, 1985. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/umkc/detail.action?docID=680944. Wolfram, Walt, et al. American English: Dialects and Variation. Wiley Blackwell, 2016....