Kim Potowski

Command of gender agreement in school-age Spanish-English Bilingual Children

By age three to four, monolingual Spanish-speaking children master gender marking and agreement in noun phrases. It is unclear whether bilingual children acquire gender marking rules by the same age as do monolingual children, and whether they in fact ever acquire these rules with 100% accuracy. This study tested sixty 6 to 11-year-old bilingual children attending a Spanish-English two-way immersion school in Chicago divided into two main age groups: younger (ages 6—8) and older (ages 9—11). Thirty-eight children came from Spanish-speaking homes (heritage speakers) and 22 came from English-speaking homes (L2 learners of Spanish). A group of 29 monolingual children from Mexico matched for age formed the comparison group. The children were first asked to narrate the story of Little Red Riding Hood, and then they were asked to complete an elicited picture description task with colored animals. Results of the two tasks showed that the bilingual children produced more gender errors than the monolingual children. In general, heritage speakers were more accurate than L2 learners, although there were differences by age of onset of bilingualism in both groups. Crucially, there was no evidence of language loss with increased age. Our results suggest that a dual immersion school curriculum is conducive to both language acquisition and maintenance.

A comparative study of bilingual discourse markers in Chicago Mexican, Puerto Rican, and MexiRican Spanish

This study examines the use of Spanish and English discourse markers among first, second, and third generation Spanish-speakers in Chicago, Illinois, comparing Mexican, Puerto Rican, and MexiRican speakers. We find that so is a core borrowing for all groups, although there were some differences in the frequency of usage of the discourse markers across the different Spanish dialect varieties. We also find that of all the variables analyzed, weaker Spanish proficiency is most strongly correlated with more frequent usage of so at the expense of entonces. We predict that these two discourse markers will coexist for some time, but that the frequency of so may increase and the frequency of entonces may decrease for all functions with subsequent generations.

Chicago's heritage language teacher corps: a model for improving spanish teacher development

Few postsecondary foreign language teacher-training programs include coursework on teaching Spanish to native speakers (SNS), even at institutions that offer SNS tracks for their own undergraduates and that prepare high school teachers to work in areas with high Latino concentrations. This article describes a model of in-service SNS teacher training called the Heritage Language Teacher Corps offered through a collaboration between the University of Illinois at Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools. The program offers three graduate-level courses that prepare teachers in accordance with several of the necessary teacher competencies for teaching SNS outlined in the AATSP volume Spanish for Native Speakers (2000, 88). This article offers a description of the HLTC model: the three courses; workshops and other activities; program evaluations; and future directions.

El Español de los Estados Unidos

How long has Spanish been spoken in the US and how many people speak it today? Is Spanish being passed down through generations? What role does Spanish play in US Latino identity? Analysing and synthesising data from a wide variety of sources, Escobar and Potowski explore these questions and more in this up-to-date textbook for students of Spanish language, linguistics, bilingualism, sociolinguistics, culture, and history.Over 150 exercises help students engage with the linguistic characteristics of Spanish, Spanish-dialect contact, bilingualism, and Spanish communities in the USExercises and examples refer students to external, online sources so they can experience Spanish through a range of mediaConcepts are clearly defined with detailed examples for readers who may not have a background in linguisticsMisconceptions about Spanish varieties and Latino communities are addressed, ensuring readers will emerge with a clear understanding of how Latino communities vary linguistically and socioculturally.

Linguistic and cultural authenticity of ‘Spanglish’ greeting cards

Abstract Past scholarly work has examined commercial greeting cards as an important cultural practice. The growing presence in the USA of bilingual greeting cards offers a site for understanding public uses of contact varieties of language. This paper analyses the reactions of 30 college educated US-raised bilingual Latinos to 17 intrasententially codeswitched Spanish–English greeting cards. Despite a few exceptions, there were correlations between the felicitousness of the codeswitches and their acceptability ratings. Hills concept of ‘mock Spanish’ helps explain participants’ reactions to the infelicitously codeswitched (IC) cards, although these cards are produced for (and presumably by) bilinguals rather than Anglos. The IC cards can be understood as a distortion of authentic bilingual practices in a failed attempt to reflect and/or shape Latino linguistic practices.

Perspectivas sobre la enseñanza del español a los hablantes de herencia en los Estados Unidos

Hay casi 50 millones de personas en los Estados Unidos (EE.UU.) que hablan espanol. Se estima que el 40% son inmigrantes y el otro 60% nace en EE.UU., en su mayoria hijos, nietos o bisnietos de inmigrantes. Al ser expuestos al espanol en el hogar o en redes sociales comunitarias o relaciones de familia extendida, muchos han adquirido capacidades comunicativas en este idioma pero son principalmente angloparlantes. Se les ha denominado “hablantes de herencia”, “bilingues” o incluso “hablantes nativos” en el ambito educativo; la ensenanza del espanol para ellos se conoce como heritage language teaching o espanol para hablantes de herencia (EHH). Este articulo considera las bases sociolinguisticas y pedagogicas de la ensenanza del espanol a la poblacion bilingue de EE.UU., enfocandose en algunos retos que se presentan a todos los niveles educativos: (1) la heterogeneidad sociolinguistica y cultural; (2) los fenomenos evidentes en sus repertorios comunicacionales asi como en los aspectos linguisticos, afectivo...

Bilingual Youth: Spanish-speakers at the Beginning of the 21st Century

Spanish is spoken by approximately 406 million people, making it the second most commonly spoken language in the world. A fair estimate is that approximately one-third of this population is bilingual. This article focuses on Spanish-speaking bilingual youth in a variety of sociolinguistic situations around the world, summarizing a sample of research in four broad areas – linguistic structure, family language policy, education, and identity – and points out areas for future research.