Location
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Keywords
Chicano English, California, /u/-fronting
Description
Chicano English is a distinct U.S. English dialect common in California and the Southwestern United States. As Spanish immigrants from Mexico moved to the United States, especially throughout the 1990s, they learned English but carried some of the sounds and grammatical constructions from Spanish with them. Chicano English has become its own variety of English with organized linguistic patterns and must not be confused with English of second-language learners. This paper offers an accessible background piece to Chicano English in California and the ways that this dialect is changing due to contact with the surrounding dialects. The linguistic patterns of Chicano English can be traced to phonological influence from Spanish in its vowels, timing of syllables, intonation patterns, and some consonants and consonant clusters. Chicano English shows influence from well-known English dialects as well, including African-American English and California Anglo speakers who show /u/-fronting. The strength of these influences to Chicano English varies across the generation of speakers examined and where the speakers are from.
Included in
Dialect Influence on California Chicano English
Purdue University West Lafayette, IN
Chicano English is a distinct U.S. English dialect common in California and the Southwestern United States. As Spanish immigrants from Mexico moved to the United States, especially throughout the 1990s, they learned English but carried some of the sounds and grammatical constructions from Spanish with them. Chicano English has become its own variety of English with organized linguistic patterns and must not be confused with English of second-language learners. This paper offers an accessible background piece to Chicano English in California and the ways that this dialect is changing due to contact with the surrounding dialects. The linguistic patterns of Chicano English can be traced to phonological influence from Spanish in its vowels, timing of syllables, intonation patterns, and some consonants and consonant clusters. Chicano English shows influence from well-known English dialects as well, including African-American English and California Anglo speakers who show /u/-fronting. The strength of these influences to Chicano English varies across the generation of speakers examined and where the speakers are from.