John M. Lipski, Pennsylvania State University

Title:  The evolving interface of U. S. Spanish: language mixing as hybrid vigor

Abstract: Spanish has been in contact with English—and with other varieties of Spanish—in the United States for more than a century, but the nature of its speech communities have changed considerably in recent decades.  Language contact phenomena, grouped under the derogatory umbrella of “Spanglish,” have generally been viewed as detrimental to both Spanish and English.  The present study argues that stable contact varieties of Spanish have emerged and are playing an increasing role in the maintenance and spread of Spanish in the United States.  Using the biological metaphor of hybridization, it is claimed that insistence on artificial notions of purity is a historically unrealistic endeavor that reduces Spanish to a “hot-house” product unable to survive in U. S. society.  The study traces changes in Spanish usage both as new regional and social varieties have entered the U. S. Spanish mix in the past few decades but also as increasing numbers of native bilingual speakers enter the upper eschelons of the communication mainstream.  Language and dialect hybridization has not changed the fundamental grammatical and phonological structures of Spanish in the U. S., but it has contributed an authenticity that deserves wider recognition as a vehicle for social change.

  
Bio-statement:  John M. Lipski is Professor of Spanish and Linguistics at the Pennsylvania State University.  His research interests include Spanish language variation, language contact, phonology, creole languages, and the contributions of the African diaspora to Spanish and Portuguese.  He has done fieldwork in Spain, Africa, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America, the Philippines, and many Spanish-speaking communities within the United States.  Currently he is on a Guggenheim fellowship to study contemporary Afro-Hispanic speech communities.  He is the author of more than 200 articles and the following books:  Varieties of Spanish in the United States [forthcoming]; A history of Afro-Hispanic language contact; Latin American Spanish [also translated into Spanish and Japanese]; The language of the Isleños of Louisiana; The speech of the Negros Congos of Panama; Linguistic aspects of Spanish-English language switching; El español de Malabo; The Spanish of Equatorial Guinea; Fonética y fonología del español de Honduras; El español en síntesis [with the late Eduardo Neale-Silva].

Please direct questions to aaal2007@indiana.edu  *  Costa Mesa, California  *  April 21-24, 2007