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21 pages, 348 KB

Open AccessArticle

Code-Switching, Reggaetón, and Identity Negotiation Among Puerto Ricans in the Diaspora

by Claudia Matachana López

Languages 2026, 11(3), 51; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages11030051 - 16 Mar 2026

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This qualitative study examines the language ideologies surrounding code-switching and Puerto Rican Spanish among Puerto Rican bilingual speakers in Massachusetts, focusing on how these ideologies interact with identity construction in the diaspora. Participants in this study commonly described their own language use as Spanglish, emphasizing both its practical role in everyday communication and its significance as a marker of cultural and linguistic identity. Drawing on data collected through sociolinguistic interviews and focus groups, this research explores how participants perceive code-switching not only as a communicative strategy but also as a meaningful expression of Puerto Rican identity. Although negative ideologies persist–framing code-switching as linguistic inadequacy–this study centers on how speakers actively negotiate and redefine these views within their communities. Puerto Rican Spanish, shaped by historical contact with English and sociopolitical ties to the U.S., offers a unique lens through which to explore these dynamics. The findings also suggest that media representations, particularly through music genres such as reggaetón, contribute to shaping and reflecting language ideologies. By centering on speakers’ voices, this paper contributes to understanding how language ideologies form and are shaped by bilingual practices, and how code-switching functions as a form of linguistic citizenship in the Puerto Rican diaspora. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue A Citizen’s Perspective on Code-Switching: Language Attitudes and Language Ideologies)

16 pages, 1802 KB

Open AccessArticle

COVID-19 Oral Historias Project: Amplifying the Lived Experiences of San Antonio’s Hispanic Community

by Whitney Chappell

Soc. Sci. 2025, 14(12), 711; https://doi.org/10.3390/socsci14120711 - 12 Dec 2025

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Abstract

Through a series of over 100 bilingual interviews with Hispanic San Antonians, the COVID-19 Oral Historias Project documents the Latino/a/e community’s experiences through the pandemic by sharing individual stories, amplifying local voices, and creating compassion in a fragmented time. The present article documents the project itself, contextualizing its creation, detailing its methodology, highlighting the most common themes across interviews, and pointing out its novel contributions. While the interviewees’ experiences are inarguably diverse, narrative threads were found throughout the corpus, united by the duality of the narrators’ experiences; throughout this period, they simultaneously negotiated community norms and official health directives, local and international anxieties, and hopelessness and hope. The project is unique in (1) its language use, privileging minoritized ways of speaking (Spanish and Spanglish); (2) its size, with over 100 interviews; and (3) its clearly delimited scope, with all respondents living in San Antonio. This massive, unified resource creates a public collection of bilingual stories, highlighting non-hegemonic voices that are of value to the community itself, as well as to the recorded history of the pandemic, filling in historical gaps and providing real, lived accounts of this period that might otherwise be lost over time. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Narrative Practices, Stories, Storytelling, Clinical and Community Work: An Intersectional Analysis)

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17 pages, 353 KB

Open AccessArticle

Spanglish in the US, Belize and Gibraltar: On the Importance of Comparative Research

by Osmer Balam

Languages 2025, 10(11), 283; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10110283 - 12 Nov 2025

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 2300

Abstract

Even though it has been previously suggested that Spanglish is not exclusive to the US, research on this sociolinguistic phenomenon has focused on the US Hispanophone context, thus providing a limited understanding of how the US compares to Belize and Gibraltar, two language contact situations where Spanglish is also attested. This paper fills this gap by bringing together insights from scholarship on these three contexts where Spanish has been in prolonged contact with English. To this end, this article highlights some of the key debates and discussions regarding Spanglish. It also introduces the reader to some similarities between the US, Belize and Gibraltar and posits that there are Spanglish phenomena, which necessarily entail the reevaluation of the role that structural hybridity plays in Spanglish. Lastly, through an overview of comparative analyses that have been conducted more recently, we illustrate the importance of this work in elucidating our knowledge of the remarkable patterns of uniformity and variability that characterize the dynamic nature of Spanglish varieties in different parts of the world today. Full article

17 pages, 4914 KB

Open AccessArticle

Language Perceptions of New Mexico: A Focus on the NM Borderland

by Kathryn P. Bove

Languages 2024, 9(5), 161; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages9050161 - 28 Apr 2024

Viewed by 4361

Abstract

New Mexico is located along the U.S.–Mexico border, and as such, Spanish, English, and language mixing form an integral part of the New Mexican identity. New Mexico is often divided into a northern and a southern region with the north known for Spanish archaisms due to historic isolation, and the south associated with ties to a Mexican identity due to the location of the U.S.–Mexico border. The current study uses perceptual dialectology to capture the way in which speakers in the south of New Mexico perceive this north/south divide and communicate their identity. Overall, there is evidence of the north/south divide, but speakers in southern New Mexico focus much more on language use such as Spanglish, English, and Spanish than on their northern counterparts. Participants reference language mixing over language “purity” and borders over an explicit rural/urban divide. Like previous accounts, we see reference to the “correctness” of both English and Spanish, examples of specific terminology used in different parts of the state, and descriptions of accents throughout the state. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Language Contact in Borderlands)

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15 pages, 404 KB

Open AccessFeature PaperArticle

Critical Language Awareness in the Spanish as a Heritage Language College Classroom

by Mary Hudgens Henderson

Languages 2022, 7(3), 157; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages7030157 - 21 Jun 2022

Cited by 14 | Viewed by 4600

Abstract

This article analyzes the critical language awareness (CLA) of Spanish university-level students who were enrolled in a 16-week Spanish heritage language (SHL) course, using CLA as an instructional approach. Students’ attitudes towards bilingualism, Spanglish, language variation, and prescriptivist grammar were measured via pretest and posttest surveys that used a four-point Likert scale of strongly agree, agree, disagree, or strongly disagree, along with a text box asking participants to explain their answers. The CLA instructional methods delivered in the course included the analysis of code-switching grammar constraints, the study of standard language ideologies and monolingual language ideologies, the analysis of stigmatized grammar features found in varieties of Spanish, and English-influenced lexicon. Ten out of fourteen items were included in a factor analysis which yielded a statistically significant change between pretest and posttest. Qualitative analysis of answer explanations showed that some students adapted their language ideologies to the new information and did not change their beliefs at a deep level. Future CLA research should identify “CLA proficiency” levels as well as how to differentiate for students who hold deeply entrenched language ideologies. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Developing Heritage Language Learners’ Critical Language Awareness)

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