Latinx Perceptions of Literary Language Crossings: The Linguistic Challenge of (Post)Modernity in the United States
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30827/rl.vi28.21370Keywords:
Latina and Caribbean literature, language crossing, perceptions, Spanish as a heritage languageAbstract
Language crossings in Latinx-Caribbean artistic production provide an opportunity for students of Spanish as a heritage language (HL) to reflect upon conventional uses of Spanish and English and develop awareness of the cultural and pragmatic value of code-mixed discourse. Ben Rampton argues that language crossing destabilizes ethnic identity as most often conceptualized in public and policy discourses in globalized spaces (2000). The present survey study drew on Rampton’s proposal and posed general questions to Spanish HL learners in response to a variety of excerpts of US Latina and Caribbean literary texts that contain English and Spanish. The overall findings suggest that, although these texts may contest conventional notions of mainstream Caribbean, American, and US Latinx discourses in terms of language boundaries and literary canons, HL speakers of Spanish in the US tend to project a largely monolingual and monolithic vision of language in relation to national and ethnolinguistic identity.
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