The Spanish Program of MLC invites you to the talk Perceptions on Spanish-English Mixing: Myths and Realities by Dr. Cecilia Montes-Alcalá, Associate Professor of Spanish at Georgia Tech.
Abstract: The mix of Spanish and English is a natural, albeit often poorly understood, behavior in the discourse of bilingual individuals. Misconceptions surrounding the so-called Spanglish influence our attitudes towards the present and future of Spanish in the US. In this talk I will review some key definitions, its controversies and the arguments presented by both detractors and promoters of such mode of speech. I will present examples of typical language contact phenomena such as borrowing, semantic extension, calques, and code-switching. More specifically, I will discuss the principles established in language mixing as well as the valuable functions it performs in bilingual communities.
