Code-Switching In Spanish

Spanglish is a term that describes the linguistic blend of English words with Spanish. Similar to an actual language, Spanglish has its cultural importance since it strongly influences the way in which bilingual individuals communicate and express ideas and opinions. In order to understand when and why bilingual individuals insert or switch words from English to Spanish or vice versa, I interviewed and recorded a conversation between my 18 year old cousin, Chave, and I. However, most of the interesting aspects of her use of Spanglish was evident through her conversations with her family members. Through close observation it was evident that code switchers or “Spanglish” speakers have a complex way of deciding when and with who it is acceptable and even necessary to code switch. Chave migrated to the U.S. from the Dominican Republic ten years ago, when she was only eight years old. She is now a high school senior. Her parents do not speak …show more content…
For example: “la mano”, which means “the hand” in English, but “la” [ ] is a feminine pronoun and “mano” [ ] a masculine morpheme. There is no such thing as an indefinite article in Spanish (the), which is why words are gendered. Also, all infinitive verbs in Spanish end in “ar”, “er,” and “ir”, for instance “correr” (to run), or “escribir” (to write). Finally, the order of adjectives and nouns in a Spanish sentence are often the reverse of how it would be in enlgish. For example, “ Me gusta el carro azul” (I like the blue car), if it was to be translated word for word iy would be “I like the car blue” which is both grammatically and phonetically wrong in the socially accepted English language. What I am trying to say is that, speaking Spanglish is a very complex task because there are so many differences between the two