Phillip M. Carter

Multilingual Miami: Current Trends in Sociolinguistic Research

In this paper, we discuss current trends in sociolinguistic work focusing on language in metropolitan Miami, an area we contend is underrepresented in the sociolinguistics literature given the unique contact situation that has arisen there during the past half century. We focus our attention on four main areas of theoretical and empirical concern: (1) Spanish–English bilingualism, (2) issues related to the varieties of Spanish spoken in Miami, (3) issues related to the varieties of English spoken in Miami, and (4) an overview of languages other than English and Spanish spoken in the region, with particular attention to Haitian Creole. We conclude with suggestions for future sociolinguistic work in all of these areas.

National narratives, institutional ideologies, and local talk: The discursive production of Spanish in a 'new' US Latino community

This study investigates the figuration of “Spanish” as a sociocultural discourse within the context of a middle school in North Carolina, where immigration from Latin America is new, yet quickly accelerating. The school-based discourse is analyzed in terms of everyday ways of talking among students, as well as institutional ideologies and practices, which mediate national discourses about US Latinos and reinforce tropes circulated by students. Everyday ways of talking among non-Latino students suggest that Latinos—both immigrants and US born—are Spanish monolinguals who “choose” to be segregated from the English speakers. The use of Spanish by Latinos is constructed by non-Latinos as secretive and dangerous, linking local tropes about Spanish to national discourses. Consistent informal pressure against Spanish at school links to broader pressures against Spanish in the community and beyond. The discourse problematizes Latino identity formations and limits the types of identities available to Latino students. (Discursive production, Spanish, US Latinos, Latino threat narrative) *

Poststructuralist Theory and Sociolinguistics: Mapping the Linguistic Turn in Social Theory

Poststructuralist theory has been broadly influential throughout the humanities and social sciences for two decades, yet sociolinguistic engagement with poststructuralism has been limited to select subfields. In this paper, I consider the possibilities for richer cross-disciplinary work involving sociolinguistics and poststructuralist social theory. I begin by describing the place of social theory within sociolinguistics, paying attention both to the possibilities of interdisciplinarity and the resistance to it. I then introduce the basic tenets of poststructuralism, focusing primarily on its two main constructs, ‘performativity’ and ‘discourse,’ and briefly discuss the discontentment with structuralism that resulted in ‘the linguistic turn’. I outline the sites in the literature where sociolinguists have already made use of poststructuralist approaches, and conclude by suggesting new possibilities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. Though the paper focuses primarily on variationist sociolinguistics in the U.S. academy, I also make reference to other fields that work with non-static, anti-essentialist approaches to sociality, such as critical discourse analysis. I contend that poststructuralist approaches to social theory are useful for sociolinguists, especially variationists, in that they resist the false dichotomy between agency and structure and provide a comprehensive way of thinking about identity that ignores neither practice nor subjectivity.

Grammatical change in borderlands Spanish: A variationist analysis of copula variation and progressive expansion in a South Texas bilingual enclave community

Abstract This study investigates variation in the grammatical system of Spanish in the speech of three generations of Mexican Americans living in a community in South Texas, United States, characterized by high levels of bilingualism and long-term, sustained contact between languages. Two variables are studied using quantitative methods: (1) the extension of the copula verb estar into domains traditionally confined to ser and (2) the expansion of progressive forms at the expense of the simple present. The data reported here suggest changes-in-progress that appear to be accelerated by the linguistic and sociocultural conditions of the community including, especially, lack of access to formal education in Spanish. The sociolinguistic patterning for these variables is compared to patterning for the same variables reported in the literature in both monolingual communities in Spain and Latin America and bilingual communities in the United States.

Hispanic-Serving Institutions and Mass Media Engagement: Implications for Sociolinguistic Justice

This article describes the rise of Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) as an institutional designation within postsecondary education in the U.S. context, and outlines some of the language-based challenges U.S. Latinx students face on campus and in the home speech community. Engagement with the mass media through editorial writing and interviews in television, radio, and print formats is conceived of as a productive means of educating the public about HSIs and the language issues that contextualize the lives of the student bodies that attend them, combating misinformation about U.S. Latinx speech communities, and, more generally, for doing what Wolfram (2016) calls “public sociolinguistics education.” A model of mass media engagement is suggested, in which community-based sociolinguistic research is communicated by the researcher to press specialists at the university, who help place it with journalists, who then disseminate sociolinguistic knowledge to the general public. The effects of mass media engagement—including community involvement and the creation of sociolinguistic artifacts—are discussed, and practical advice for promoting sociolinguistic perspectives through mass media engagement is given.

ANA CELIA ZENTELLA (ed.), Building on strength: Language and literacy in Latino families and communities

Ana Celia Zentella (ed.), Building on strength: Language and literacy in Latino families and communities . New York: Teachers College Press, 2005. Pp. 224. Pb

Prosodic rhythm and African American English

23.95. The 11 essays in Zentellas edited volume investigate language socialization practices of U.S. Latinos and together make possible a conceptualization of Latino language and literacy that resists “a view of Latino parents as monolithic and unconcerned about education” (p. 3). In her introduction, Zentella briefly traces the history of language socialization research and introduces the framework that undergirds the volume.