El uso contextual del pronombre sujeto como factor predictivo de la influencia del inglés en el español de Nueva York [English influence on Spanish in New York: Evidence from subject pronouns in context]

Authors

  • Naomi Lapidus Shin University of New Mexico Author
  • Cecilia Montes-Alcalá Georgia Institute of Technology Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v8i1.85

Keywords:

language contact, Spanish in the US, bilingualism, pronouns

Abstract

The role of English in shaping US Spanish is widely debated. Evidence for English influence has been found in New York where greater familiarity with English correlates with changes in subject pronoun use (Otheguy & Zentella 2012). The present study further examines the impact of English by studying divergent contexts, where pronoun omission is common in Spanish, but not English, as well as convergent contexts, in which omission is common in both Spanish and English (imperatives, e.g. Ø sit down, and coordinate clauses maintaining reference, e.g. we came in and Ø sat down). Analyses of over 25,000 verbs in the speech of two generations of Latinos in New York indicate that English acts not only as a promoter of pronoun use in Spanish, but also as an inhibitor of pronoun use in contexts where both languages tend to omit pronouns.

Author Biographies

  • Naomi Lapidus Shin, University of New Mexico
    Naomi Lapidus Shin is an Assistant Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at the University of New Mexico. Her two primary areas of research are: 1) Spanish in the United States and how it is shaped by bilingualism and language contact, and 2) the acquisition of Spanish during childhood (among both monolingual and bilingual children). A common theme in her research is how functionality influences the trajectory of language change and development. Recent publications include ‘Social class and gender impacting change in bilingual settings: Spanish subject pronoun use in New York’ (Language in Society 2013), ‘The development of NP selection in school-age children: reference and Spanish subject pronouns’ (Language Acquisition 2012), ‘Las keys vs. el key: Feminine Gender Assignment in Mixed Language Texts’ (Spanish in Context 2011), and ‘Efficiency in lexical borrowing in New York Spanish’ (International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2010).
  • Cecilia Montes-Alcalá, Georgia Institute of Technology
    Cecilia Montes-Alcalá, an Associate Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, specializes in sociolinguistics and bilingualism. Her recent publications include ‘Code Switching in U.S. Latino Novels’ (Language Mixing and Code-Switching in Writing, M. Sebba, S. Mahootian and C. Jonsson (eds) London: Routledge, 2012), ‘Las keys vs. el key: Feminine Gender Assignment in Mixed-Language Texts’, co-authored with Naomi Lapidus Shin (Spanish in Context 8.1, 2011), and ‘¿Mejor o peor español? Actitudes lingüísticas de universitarios hispanohablantes en Estados Unidos’ (Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 4.1, 2011).

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Published

2014-07-21

Issue

Vol. 8 No. 1 (2014): The Influence of English on U.S. Spanish

Section

Articles

License

© Equinox Publishing Ltd.

For information regarding our Open Access policy, click here.

How to Cite

Shin, N. L., & Montes-Alcalá, C. (2014). El uso contextual del pronombre sujeto como factor predictivo de la influencia del inglés en el español de Nueva York [English influence on Spanish in New York: Evidence from subject pronouns in context]. Sociolinguistic Studies, 8(1), 85-110. https://doi.org/10.1558/sols.v8i1.85