Robert Bayley

Language Socialization Practices and Cultural Identity: Case Studies of Mexican-Descent Families in California and Texas

This article explores the relationship between language and cultural identity as manifested in the language socialization practices of four Mexican-descent families: two in northern California and two in south Texas. The analysis considers both the patterns of meaning suggested by the use of Spanish and English in the speech and literacy performances of four focal children as well as family and dominant societal ideologies concerning the symbolic importance of the two languages, the way language learning occurs, and the role of schooling—all frameworks in which the childrens linguistic behaviors were embedded. All four focal children defined themselves in terms of allegiance to their Mexican or Mexican American cultural heritage. However, the families were oriented differently to the Spanish language as a vehicle for affirmation of this commonly articulated group identity. The differences are emblematic of stances taken in a larger cultural and political debate over the terms of Latino participation in U.S. society. Parents in all of the families endorsed Spanish maintenance and spoke of the language as an important aspect of their sense of cultural identity. Only two of the families, however, pursued aggressive home maintenance strategies. Of the other two families, one used a protocol combining some Spanish use in the home with instruction from Spanish-speaking relatives, whereas the family that had moved most fully into the middle class was the least successful in the intergenerational transmission of Spanish, despite a commitment to cultural maintenance.

Null Pronoun Variation in Mexican-Descent Children's Narrative Discourse.

In Spanish, subject pronouns may be realized phonetically or as null. Previous research on a wide range of dialects has established a rich patterning of constraints on this variation, with switch reference as the first order linguistic constraint. Recently, however, Paredes Silva (1993), in a study of written Brazilian Portuguese, suggested a more fine-grained analysis of null subject pronoun variation based on a model of discourse connectedness. This study tests Paredes Silvas model on the oral and written Spanish narratives of northern California Mexican-descent preadolescents. Results of multivariate analysis indicate that discourse connectedness provides a more fine-grained account of pronoun variation in the Spanish of these children than switch reference. The study also considers the effect of morphological ambiguity. We suggest that tense and aspect features provide a better explanation for the higher incidence of overt pronouns with imperfect, conditional, and subjunctive verb forms than the functional compensation hypothesis. Finally, we examine pronoun variation across immigrant generations. The results indicate that children with the greatest depth of ties to the United States are less likely to use overt pronouns than children born in Mexico.

Consonant cluster reduction in Tejano English

This study examines the well-known process of consonant cluster reduction in the English of residents of a San Antonio, Texas, barrio . The study compares Tejano patterns of /-t, d/ deletion with the pan-English pattern summarized by Labov (1989). Results of VARBRUL analysis show that /-t, d/ deletion in Tejano English is constrained by many of the same factors as in other English dialects, including Los Angeles Chicano English. Results also suggest, however, a complex pattern of convergence and divergence. Younger Tejanos are converging toward other dialects of English with respect to the effect of the morphological class on cluster simplification. Yet there is some evidence that they are diverging from other dialects with respect to the effect of syllable stress. On this latter dimension, younger Tejanos replicate the pattern found by Santa Ana (1991) among Los Angeles Chicanos. Finally, the study compares /-t, d/ deletion in Tejano/Chicano English in San Antonio and Los Angeles and shows that, despite many similarities, Mexican American varieties exhibit regional as well as generational differences.

Bilingual by Choice: Latino Parents’ Rationales and Strategies for Raising Children with Two Languages

Abstract This paper reports findings of a study which addressed caretakers’ rationales and actions in support of Spanish language maintenance and the issues they confronted in pursuing this goal. Analysis focuses on both respondents’ attitudes regarding individual bilingualism as an idealized social construct and the reasons behind their personal decisions with regard to home language use. On a societal level, respondents favored an arrangement defined by cultural pluralism and viewed individual bilingualism as a means to promote this goal. The rationale given most frequently by caretakers when asked specifically about their personal motivations for using Spanish with their children concerned instrumental benefits from being bilingual: knowing Spanish would serve their children well academically, give them an advantage in a competitive job market, and help them to adapt in the face of possible geographic relocation. However, analysis of the interviews as life stories revealed that when not explicitly aske...

Language Socialization in Theory and Practice.

Language socialization research has traditionally focused on how young children are socialized into the norms and patterns of their culture by and through language. Research in this tradition has typically conceived of the process as relatively static, bounded and relatively unidirectional. This article, based on a long‐term ethnographic investigation of home language practices in Mexican‐background families in the United States, confirms the theoretical and applied limitations of such a traditional approach to language acquisition. Two narratives of Mexican‐background women in northern California, whose lives represent different circumstances and trajectories, show that language socialization is a dynamic and interactive process that extends throughout the lifespan as people come to participate in new communities, define and redefine themselves according to new roles, and either acquiesce in or challenge the definitions and role relationships formulated by others.

Variation in the group and the individual: Evidence from second language acquisition

Abstract This article examines the relationship between group and individual patterns of variation in one area of the grammar: verbal morphology. The results of studies of the acquisition of English and Hungarian verbal morphology by Chinese learners show that individual patterns of variation closely match group patterns on several dimensions. Multivariate analysis shows that frequency and perceptual saliency affect verb marking by all Chinese acquirers of English and Hungarian in a similar manner. In addition, separate quantitative analyses of individual speakers show that all the Chinese learners of English considered here are approximately twice as likely to mark perfective verbs for past tense as to mark imperfective verbs. These convergent results suggest that for first order constraints such as aspect, perceptual salience, and frequency, individual results do in fact match group patterns and that we are justified from an empirical and a theoretical viewpoint in reporting group results in studies of second language acquisition (SLA).

Lexical Variation in African American and White Signing

�This article, part of a larger study of phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical variation in American Sign Language (ASL), examines lexical differences in the ASL varieties used by African American and white signers. Our goal is to reexamine claims made about the correlation of lexical variation with ethnicity as well as claims pertaining to the course of language change (see, e.g., Woodward 1976). Specifically, we examine three questions: (1) Are there lexical differences between African American and white signing? (2) What are the processes of change reflected in the varieties of ASL used by African American and white signers? (3) How does lexical innovation differ from phonological variation in the lexicon? To answer these questions, we focus on the responses of ASL signers to picture and fingerspelled stimuli designed to elicit specific lexical items. 1 The elicitation task was part of a much larger study of sociolinguistic variation in ASL, described later in the paper. A brief review of research on lexical variation in ASL and African American signing demonstrates that the same kinds of issues that characterize lexical variation in spoken languages also characterize lexical variation in ASL, for example, phonological variation within the lexicon and occurrences of rapid lexical innovation related to changes in social norms.

Variable Subject Presence in ASL Narratives

This article examines variation between null and overt subject pronouns in ASL. In ASL, information about the subject is sometimes provided through morphology. Certain verbs allow changes in form (i.e., in their use of space) that indicate the person and/or number of the subject. In the case of “plain verbs” (Padden 1988), however, the verb form itself includes no information about the subject. Although we might expect plain verbs to require separate manual subjects, they also show variable subject presence. In this study, based on spontaneous narratives produced by signers ranging from 16 to 84 years of age, we use multivariate analysis to examine the behavior of subjects of plain verbs. All possible sites of pronominal subjects occurring with plain verbs were coded for a number of factors, including person and number, switch reference, sentence type, age, and gender. We also coded for whether the token occurred within constructed action or dialogue or within utterances marked by obvious English influence. Overall, results indicate that ASL subject pronoun presence with plain verbs is systematic and constrained by a range of factors that exhibit remarkable similarity to constraints found in studies of spoken languages. Results for age, however, need to be interpreted in light of the social history of the U.S. Deaf community.

Variation in American Sign Language: The case of DEAF

Variation in sign languages has been a neglected area of research in sociolinguistics. This article, part of a large-scale study of variation in American Sign Language (ASL) designed to redress that situation, examines variation in the form of the sign DEAF, which can be produced by moving the forefinger from ear to chin, from chin to ear, or by contacting the lower cheek. Multivariate analysis of more than 1600 tokens of DEAF extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with 207 signers residing in seven regions of the United States shows that both linguistic and social factors significantly constrain choice among the three variants. The analysis also illustrates patterns that parallel variation in spoken languages. However, despite the similarities to variation in spoken languages, we suggest that results for the regional patterning of variation are best explained by reference to Deaf history, particularly to changes in the status and use of ASL in deaf education.

Location Variation in American Sign Language

This article, part of a larger project that studied sociolinguistic variation in American Sign Language, examines that variation in a class of American Sign Language signs exemplified by the verb know, which vary in their location. Usually these signs are produced at the forehead, but frequently they are produced at a lower level. Analysis of approximately twenty-nine hundred tokens of signs of this class from more than two hundred signers in seven U.S. sites shows that the lowering of signs such as know is constrained by both linguistic and social factors that parallel variation in spoken languages. Results from signers of three different age groups also provide evidence of change in progress. Despite similarities to variation in spoken languages, results for several social factors are best explained by reference to Deaf history and to the structure of the Deaf community.