Open AccessSubject expression in a Southeastern U.S. Mexican community
Author(s) -
Philip Limerick
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
borealis
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 1893-3211
DOI - 10.7557/1.8.2.4870
Subject(s) - subject pronoun , pronoun , linguistics , subject (documents) , psychology , variation (astronomy) , expression (computer science) , ambiguity , mood , polarity (international relations) , language contact , social psychology , computer science , biology , philosophy , physics , genetics , library science , astrophysics , cell , programming language
Through an analysis of immigrant Spanish in Georgia, potential contact-induced language change is investigated through the lens of subject pronoun expression. Pronoun variation among Mexican speakers is examined using sociolinguistic interview data. Tokens of subject pronouns (N = 4,649) were coded for linguistic variables previously shown to constrain subject expression (e.g. person/number, tense-mood-aspect [TMA], polarity) as well as social variables (e.g. English proficiency, age), and then analysed using multivariate analyses in Rbrul. Results indicate an overall pronoun rate of 27%, which is slightly higher than what has been reported for monolingual Mexican Spanish. Several linguistic variables (e.g. person/number, switch-reference, morphological ambiguity, polarity) and one social variable (age) played a significant role in pronoun variation. Moreover, differential effects were revealed when compared to monolingual Mexican Spanish for variables such as TMA. These findings point in the direction of dialect contact influences and the presence of a unique variety of Mexican Spanish in the U.S.