Mexican American English
Substrate Influence and the Birth of an Ethnolect

A comprehensive linguistic analysis of Mexican American English, introducing a model of the language shift that results within immigrant groups.

Erik R. Thomas (Edited by)

9781107098565, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 21 February 2019

380 pages
23.5 x 15.6 x 2.1 cm, 0.74 kg

Responding to the need for a comprehensive treatment of Mexican American English and its varied influences across multiple generations, this volume provides true insight into how language contact triggers language change, and illustrates previously under-recognised links to ethnolects of other migrant groups in different parts of the world. It demonstrates how the variety begins with Spanish interference features but evolves into a stable variety over time by filtering out some of the interference features and responding to forces such as exploitation of its speakers, education, and the need to develop solidarity. A large number of linguistic variables from multiple realms of language are analysed that provide a truly balanced picture of the divisions within the community across a range of linguistic levels such as syntax, phonology, prosody, accent, dialect, and sociolinguistics.

1. Language contact, immigration, and Latino Englishes Erik R. Thomas
2. The context of North Town Belinda Treviño Schouten and Erik R. Thomas
3. Consonantal variables correlated with ethnicity Erik R. Thomas and Janneke Van Hofwegen
4. Vowels in North Town Erik R. Thomas
5. Trends from outside Erik R. Thomas
6. Social evaluation of variables Erik R. Thomas and Belinda Treviño Schouten
7. Variable (ING) Tyler S. Kendall and Erik R. Thomas
8. Coronal stop deletion in a rural South Texas community Robert Bayley and Dan Villarreal
9. Prosody Erik R. Thomas and Tyler S. Kendall
10. Morphosyntactic variation Erin Callahan
11. Latino English in new destinations: processes of regionalisation in emerging contact varieties Mary E. Kohn
12. Mexican American English and dialect genesis Erik R. Thomas.

Subject Areas: Dialect, slang & jargon [CFFD], Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Bilingualism & multilingualism [CFDM], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]