Hill (1999), represents the ideas of white public space, mocking Spanish and racism. Firstly, white public space involves intense observing of ethnic populations, like Latinos and African Americans, for signs of linguistic disorders. Examples of white public space are, bilingual speakers who are being accused as “acting white” for separating the two languages, whites who see speaking of other languages in public, rather than English, as rude, and an improper use of English by non-speaking English cultures. A very interesting point in the reading is the topic about Mock Spanish. It is divided in two parts, direct indexicality and indirect indexicality. The direct indexicality present the speaker as possessing desirable personal qualities, while the indirect indexicality present the Spanish speaker as stupid, lazy and as other highly offensive stereotypes. The biggest question that arises here is if the usage of Mock Spanish is considered to be racist, or it is just a normal borrowing. The reading fails to answer that question definitely, it gives suggestion and topics for discussion, but the answers are quite …show more content…
Her research is being made on high school students in the Bay Area in California. Being “ not white enough” is a racial mark, but a very interesting notion in this article is that the author considers being “too white” for a racial mark, too. The nerds are considered to be “too white”, because they use the “Superstandard English”. The “Superstandard English” is characterized by the use of “supercorrect” linguistic variables: lexical formality, carefully articulated phonological forms, and prescriptively standard grammar” (88). The nerds also reject the use of slang, because they want to represent a different social layer. They are considered to be different from the black students, because they are not black, but the nerds are also different from the white students, because they are “too white”. The reading provokes questions of whether being “ too white” is actually a prestigious racial mark, or it is just the contrary. It seems that “the whiteness of nerds” distance them from any of the social groups. All of the articles represent the perception of language, race and social identities. The clash of different cultures and views opens up a notion of questions and misunderstands. Most of the time the interethnic tension provokes negativity. Fortunately, it also sparks creative ideas and desires to understand where