language contact language loyalty and language prejudice

Language Contact, Language Loyalty, and Language Prejudice on the Mexican BorderAuthor(s): Margarita HidalgoSource: Language in Society, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., 1986), pp. 193-220Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4167747 .Accessed: 05/02/2014 11:26

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Lang. Soc. I5, 193-220. Printed in the United States of America

Language contact, language loyalty, and language prejudice on the Mexican border* MARGARITA HIDALGO

Department of Romance Languages State University of New York at Binghamton

ABSTRACT

This paper documents attitudes toward English, Spanish, and Spanish- English Code-switching in Juarez, Mexico, the oldest and largest city along the Mexican-U.S. border. It refutes the finding of related work which has shown two distinct orientations - integrative and instrumental - toward English as a foreign and as a second language, but supports various assumptions regarding the relationship between attitudes and use and the impact of the local milieu on language attitudes. It also explores attitudes toward correctness and sentiments of language loyalty, and highlights the influence of language loyalty on perceptions of Spanish-English Code-switching. Eighty-five Juarez residents were interviewed. (Language attitudes, sociolinguistics, Hispanic linguistics, border studies, ethnic studies, Latin American studies)

The Mexican-U.S. border is not only a political boundary dividing the First World from the Third World, but it is also an area where economic dependency, and political, socioethnic, and sociolinguistic conflicts may be observed and examined. One of the major urban complexes straddling the i,goo-mile Mex- ican-U.S. boundary is the Juarez-El Paso area, a manifold language setting which involves the use of two official languages - Spanish and English, their regional and social varieties, and more interestingly, the blending of the two in the vernacular. In Juarez, the intense relationship with two contrasting systems of values - the Mexican and the American - were conditions favorable for exploring a series of assumptions in the fields of language attitudes and sociolinguistics. The unique contact situation of Juarez is advantageous to the study of language attitudes, for contact serves as an effective catalyst in bringing out the beliefs, values, prejudices, and contradictions of a speech community. Fur- thermore, the frequency and intensity of contact between speakers of Spanish and English, and the resulting diversity in speech, might lead one to assume that border inhabitants have a number of reasons to exhibit and express negative

0047-4045/86/150193-28 $2.50 ?) 1986 Cambridge University Press

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opinions and feelings about the language they do not speak natively. In the border setting, however, language attitudes seem to be as diverse as the groups of people who inhabit the area, which is distinguished by the presence of: I) Mexicans, whose mother tongue and national language is Spanish; 2) Anglo- Americans, whose linguistic code is the English language; and 3) Mexican- Americans, who are normally speakers of Spanish and English.

This linguistic diversity motivated this writer to undertake a comprehensive examination of the perceptions that a small proportion of Juarez residents have about their own linguistic codes and about that of other groups. The purpose of this work is therefore twofold: I) to describe and illustrate the insights and reports of eighty-five people interviewed in Juarez; and 2) to serve as a ground in which to ascertain, refute, or controvert several hypotheses proposed in the fields of language attitudes and sociolinguistics. To clarify the present examination, this work will be divided into six main sections: I) Juarez setting and background; 2) theoretical framework; 3) sample, method, and respondents; 4) attitudes toward English and English use; 5) attitudes toward Spanish; and 6) attitudes toward Spanish-English Code-switching.

SETTING AND BACKGROUND

Juarez lies approximately 1,300 miles northwest of Mexico City, the capital of the country, 300 miles north of Chihuahua City, the capital of its state, Chihuahua, and abuts El Paso. The two border cities share a common life that dates back to the seventeenth century, when the two communities, known as Paso del Norte, were one. Although the Mexican-American War (1846-48) separated the two communities politically, they have remained closely linked by social, economic, and cultural forces (Martinez I980). Juarez and El Paso en- joyed a peaceful life until the beginning of the twentieth century, when they were caught in the Revolution of 1920-21, the social upheaval which linked the vast northern area with the rest of the country. When the Revolution ended, however, Juarez's economic dependence on the United States in general, and on El Paso in particular, increased considerably (Martinez x978). Today, although Juarez as a port of entry is in a strategic position, it nonetheless remains economically dependent upon and vulnerable to internal and external forces.

At present, the gainfully employed population of Juarez works mainly in industry, commerce, and services. In addition, a small percentage of the Juarez residents commute daily to El Paso, where they work in construction, trade, and services. Almost the entire population of Juarez is, for economic purposes, very much involved with U.S. society. For example, it is estimated that one-third of the Juarez population draws its livelihood from the i6o U.S.-owned assembly plants set up on a permanent basis in this locality (Martinez 1978). A less

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significant proportion of the Juarez population works in tourism and services of different types (e.g., health care deliveries).

In comparison to other regions of Mexico, Juarez is a very developed area which has historically attracted thousands of migrants from Mexico's interior (Castellanos I981), many of whom have, since the nineteenth century, crossed the border to the United States in order to work (Martinez 1977). Thus, people move to the border seeking a higher standard of living (Castellanos 198 ). Daily contact between Juarez and El Paso occurs on all social and economic levels and involves a wide complex of activities such as work, shopping, entertainment, visits to relatives and friends, and commercial transactions (D'Antonio & Form 1965). The proximity of the United States has indeed affected the stability of the local population, -since juarenses move constantly from Juarez to El Paso and back, owing to diverse personal and financial interests. This flow facilitates the contact which inevitably provokes judgment and comparison of languages and language varieties. Several decades of intense interdependence with El Paso have stimulated Mexicans to modify habits in dress, diet, language, and interpersonal relationships (Martinez 1977, 1978). The area most strikingly affected by dependence and cultural interaction has been that of consumer habits.

People of the interior of Mexico, noting these changed consumer habits, especially in the 1920-50 period, charged the Northerners with '"denationaliza- tion." The charge extended not only to the level of purchasing per se but to cultural beliefs, language use, and language education. Juarenses defended themselves by making clear that the commercial vassalage to El Paso was almost an obligatory condition, since Juarez was a city very much apart from the Mexican economy (Martinez 1978). Nonetheless, they reaffirmed that they were attitudinally and behaviorably affiliated to the Mexican heritage; as a result, the community witnessed campaigns on behalf of nationalism, enhancement of language loyalty through education, discussions on the issue of Mexicanness in the local newspapers, and refutation of charges from the interior regarding the level of "Yankee" influence in the border people's daily lives (Martinez 1978). Some of the issues discussed in the newspapers of the 1950S were the stereotype of the pocho, on the one hand, and language maintenance, on the other.' The concerned citizens defending their city emphasized that Juarez residents were not to be confused with individuals of Mexican descent inhabiting El Paso.

At present, juarenses still claim to adhere strongly to the Mexican cultural continuum in the face of their economic orientation toward the United States. This nationalistic attitude has been corroborated by Bustamante (1982), who directed a study on national identity and use of English. This crossnational investigation revealed that Juarez residents reported the highest scores with respect to Mexican values, customs, and traditions, as well as the highest scores in English use.2 SiX Mexican urban centers - Juarez, Tijuana, Matamoros, Uruapan, Acapulco, and Mexico City - were included in the study.

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THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

In many scholarly studies, "language attitude" has referred to value judgments that people have about language A as opposed to language B, or about dialect A as against dialect B, or about specific identifiable features of a language or language variety. Other reports on language attitudes have discussed the different types of motivations that individuals or groups might have about learning a language, or have examined the evaluations of a group of speakers who associate a given language with a national or ethnic group.3 Since languages, their varieties, and their features are not only means of communication but also symbols of group loyalty and social prestige, considerations of status, solidarity, and individual appraisal and background have been given utmost importance when measuring language attitudes by empirical procedures. Thus, researchers have identified the values and motivations epitomized by language attitudes and have, at the same time, created various attitudinal dimensions. Some of the now classical dimensions in the literature are derived from pioneer research conducted in Canada by Gardner and Lambert (1972). The authors' major assumption was that a subject's negative or positive feelings toward a second or foreign language could either enhance or inhibit its acquisition. After exploring these assumptions in very diverse settings, Gardner and Lambert proposed motivation as one of the most important contributors to achievement. Motivation was then interpreted as having two components - an integrative orientation and an instrumental orientation.

The notion of integrative motive implies that success in mastering a second language depends on a particular orientation on the part of the learner, reflect- ing a willingness or desire to be like representative members of the "other" language community, and to become associated, at least vicariously, with that community.

The contrasting form of orientation . . . is referred to as an instrumental orientation toward the language learning task, one characterized by a desire to gain social recognition or economic advantages through knowledge of a foreign language (Gardner & Lambert 1972:14). Instrumental and integrative orientations toward second and foreign languages

have been found in groups of speakers of diverse backgrounds such as Hindus (Lukmani 1972), Israelis (Cooper & Fishman I977), Chinese speakers living in the United States (Oiler, Hudson, & Liu I977), and Spanish speakers residing in the Southwest United States (Oller, Baca, & Vigil 1977). These studies have consistently reported that individuals claim a higher instrumental than integrative motivation toward English. This would imply that juarenses might claim to learn English mainly because of economic benefits, especially in jobs involving tourism or the assembly industry.

One line of thought in the study of language attitudes suggests that prestigious

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languages and language varieties are favorably viewed by both majority and minority members, and are preferred, at least attitudinally, to low prestige language norms (Ryan 1979). This assumption was supported by studies among French- and English-Canadians (Lambert et al. ig60; Lambert i967) and among black and white Americans of Southern and northern provenience (Tucker & Lambert 1969). Also, through the examination of phonological variants, Labov (1966) discovered that native New Yorkers were able to detect "incorrect" or stigmatized features of the local speech, even though they would not admit using them. In addition, in Lima (Peru), Escobar (1978) found that individuals from lower-middle class accurately recognized the ",typical" speech of Lima and the speech of the educated. He interpreted his finding as an indication of concern for prestigious linguistic norms in the group that identified the background of his subjects.

The studies just discussed and the unquestionable prestige of the variety of Spanish spoken in Mexico City led this writer to assume that the Spanish spoken in Juarez, insofar as correctness was concerned, would be rated less favorably than that of the capital city. Also, following the assumption that minority languages and language varieties tend to be perceived as possessing inferior at- tributes, it was expected that Mexicans would deprecate the mixed language variety spoken in El Paso, which is known by scholars as Spanish-English Code- switching and by lay people as Spanglish or pocho.4

Finally, in the most relevant study on languages in contact, Weinreich (1968) has linked the sentiments about the mother tongue to a profound need of preserv- ing one's language. The only assumption drawn from this work was that juarenses would claim strong loyalty to Spanish, their mother tongue, expressing with this attitude their desire to identify with the Mexican mainstream.

Language attitudes, exposure to English, and cultural beliefs Based on the results of empirical studies conducted in diverse settings, Gardner (I979) proposed that various psychosociological factors affect the positive or negative orientation toward learning a second or foreign language. The two factors relevant to this paper were: i) the influence of the social milieu as the basis for propagating the cultural beliefs of the community, and 2) the effects of formal language training and informal language experience. With respect to the latter, Gardner stated:

Formal language training refers to that instruction which takes place in the classroom or any other teacher/student context. Informal language exposure, on the other hand, refers to those situations which permit the student to acquire competence in second language skills without direct instruction. Instances of such experience would be speaking with members of the other cultural community, watching movies or television, listening to the radio, or reading material in the other language (Gardner 1979:198).

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In the research at hand, it is essential to distinguish formal from informal language exposure, since Juarez residents have ample opportunity for both. Formal training in English is compulsory in Mexican secondary and preparatory schools, while some hundreds of youngsters from Juarez commute daily to El Paso to attend U.S. schools.5 Informal language experience takes place in many different ways because juarenses have access to native speakers of English from El Paso, to tourists from other U.S. communities, and also to the written and spoken media originating in the United States.

Whereas Gardner (1979) assumed that formal language training and informal language exposure had effects on language attitudes, Cooper and Fishman ( 1977) found positive correlations between Israeli subjects' ratings of the importance of English for attaining valued goals (e.g., being cultured, having a good standard of living) and their own proficiency and usage of English for a given purpose (e.g., reading magazines in English, speaking to English-speaking tourists). The latter study demonstrated that individuals might thus feel more motivated to use English if they felt it served personal goals and purposes. Based on Gardner's and Cooper and Fishman's hypotheses, I assumed that juarenses' use of English in their community would be somehow associated with attitudes toward the language spoken in the United States.

Hvpotheses Guided by both theoretical assumptions and empirical universal discoveries in the fields of language attitudes and sociolinguistics, I assumed that Juarez residents would display the following types of orientation:

Hypothesis i. Juarez residents will display both integrative and instrumental attitudes toward English, but the latter will be stronger. The social milieu, in addition, will be in part responsible for attitudes toward English.

HypothesiS 2. Formal instruction in and informal exposure to English will have an effect on attitudes toward English and toward the other codes spoken in the Juarez-El Paso area.

Hypothesis 3. Juarez residents will evaluate the variety of Spanish spoken in Mexico City as being more "correct" than all the other provincial varieties.

Hypothesis 4. Juarez residents will claim a strong loyalty to the language spoken in Mexico.

Hypothesis 5. Juarez residents will reject the Spanish-English Code switching used in El Paso, because of its perceived absence of "inherent" (see note i6) and communicative values.

SAMPLE

In order to test the five hypotheses proposed, this writer gathered a sample of forty-five males and forty females, all of whom were personally interviewed in the winter and spring of 1980-81 at establishments such as stores, restaurants,

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U.S. assembly plants, banks, public offices, schools, and universities, each of which was visited several times. The sample was drawn haphazardly from these establishments, but it was purposive, for its goal was to include individuals of diverse backgrounds who had at the same time a relatively stable occupation in Juarez. Thus, in all these establishments, executives, managers, secretaries, janitors, or assembly line workers were adequate for the purposes of the study as long as they i) were willing to participate, 2) had been residing in Juarez for over five years, and 3) lived in Juarez at the time of the interview. Transients and migrants from Mexico's interior were intentionally avoided. Juarez residents working in El Paso also served as informants, because approximately lo percent of the gainfully employed population of Juarez commutes daily to El Paso, Texas.

Method The interviews, which lasted from thirty to sixty minutes each, were based on a structured instrument eliciting data on sociodemographic characteristics, language use, and language attitudes. The foregoing assumptions led to the creation of a series of questionnaire items focusing on: I) instrumental and integrative orientation, 2) local identity, 3) formal exposure to English, 4) informal experience in English, and 5) demographic characteristics (e.g., sex, age, income, occupation, education) of the Interviewees (is). Respondents' c harac teristics Almost one-half of the Is (46%) were born in Juarez; a little more than a third (39%) were born elsewhere in Mexico; and 14 percent were born in El Paso. Ages ranged from sixteen to sixty-eight years. Although the majority of the Is had resided in Juarez almost all their lives, more than half claimed to have lived - as children or adults - either in the interior of Mexico or in the United States (El Paso or elsewhere). Interviewees' occupations ranged from unskilled workers to entrepreneurs; the great majority (92%) were employed in Juarez, whereas the rest (8%) worked in El Paso at the time of the interview.

Income, father's occupation, and the neighborhood of residence in Juarez were considered the three variables determining socioeconomic status (SES). Income ranged from $8o.oo to $i ,6oo.oo+ (U.S. currency) per month. Residen- tial areas were classified as lower-lower, lower-working, lower-middle, middle- middle, upper-middle, and upper-upper class based on infrastructural factors, such as degree of urbanization, quality of public services, and cost of square meter of residence. Father's occupation was based on a hierarchical social prestige scale ranging from unskilled and semiskilled workers to professionals and entrepreneurs.6 A scale for these three variables was devised which resulted in six social groups identified for the study: i) upper-upper, 12 percent 2) upper- middle, 12 percent; 3) middle-middle, 22 percent; 4) lower-middle, 13 percent; 5) lower-working, 34 percent; and lower-lower class, 7 percent. Individuals of

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upper and middle classes are obviously overrepresented in the sample, owing to the criteria used in sample selection.

The education of the Is revealed a range of years of schooling from three years of elementary school to postbaccalaureate study. For the purposes of this study, some college education constituted the category higher education; anything less was lower education, and each group contained 50 percent of the sample. Formal exposure to English was likewise diverse. Almost two-thirds of the Is (6 I%) had been exposed to the mandatory English courses offered in Mexican schools for three hours per week. Fewer individuals had studied English in academies, commercial schools, and in elementary, junior/middle, and high school and college in the United States. The time of instruction in English (in either Mexico or the United States) ranged from one month to seventeen years. The number of years of formal instruction was associated with both SES (r = .622, p < .001) and education (r = .512, p < .00I).7

THE INFORMAL USE OF ENGLISH

The societal functions of the languages spoken in the area determine, to a certain extent, the availability, accessibility, and actual usage of language in different domains. Thus, access to the U.S. media makes use of English habitual and frequent. The official language of the United States is therefore utilized in Juarez in two major domains: I) in interpersonal interaction with Americans who visit the city for diverse personal and economic purposes; and 2) through radio, television, books and magazines. Face-to-face interaction between residents of Juarez and native speakers of English takes place in certain appropriate contexts within the city, such as hotels, restaurants, night clubs, and shops in the tourist areas, which are normally situated close to the three international bridges. A similar language usage pattern has been observed in the extensive industrial zone - in the northeast sector of the city - where the majority of the U.S. assembly plants are concentrated.

The second major use of English occurs when people utilize the U.S. media through different channels (see Table I). The survey revealed that Juarez residents who tended to speak English with Americans, tended also to listen to the radio and watch television with varying frequency. Reading U.S. publications, and writing business letters, personal letters, and homework assignments, were less frequent and habitual than all the other uses; speaking English with Mex- icans was rare. In brief, the findings demonstrated that on the Mexican side of the border, English was more often heard than read, more often spoken than written, and more often used in comprehension than production. Also, the findings revealed that speakers residing in Juarez were able to use English for a given communicative function habitually and frequently associated with the Anglo- American culture.8

In addition, it was found that English use, as described above, was correlated 200


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with the number of years of formal exposure to English (r = .62 1, p < .001) and with a higher SES (r = .543, p < .oo0). The first correlation suggests that those who had greater opportunities to learn English in a classroom setting were also able to use it for a specific purpose. While the second correlation suggests that individuals coming from upper and middle social strata tended to regularly use English in the domains discussed above, Is of lower and working classes could not be excluded because opportunities and incentives to perform in the appropriate locus (e.g., the market place, the assembly plant, the curio shop) were also crucial characteristics of a language user.

Diglossia and bilingualism At the level of personal interaction, the functions of English were clearly demarcated, for Juarez residents claimed to use English for intergroup communication in tourist-type and business-type transactions with Americans. Spanish, on the other hand, has always served for all intragroup purposes in private and public domains. When speakers of a speech community have access to functionally differentiated sociolinguistic roles of this sort, there exists a situation of bilingualism with diglossia (Fishman 197 l a, 197 1 b). Therefore, the use of English in Juarez is severely restricted in both the institutional and intimate domains but culturally approved in business firms where the presence of Americans is expected. In the context of Juarez, bilingualism without diglossia is also plausible when border residents utilize English for individual practice, such as listening to U.S. radio, watching U.S. television, or reading U.S. books and magazines.

Attitudes toward English From the concepts of integrativeness and instrumentality adapted frorn Gardner and Lambert ( 972), two basic types of orientation toward English were explored through questionnaire items presented in Table 2. The first part of Table 2 shows that the majority of the Is strongly agreed or somewhat agreed that English was valuable as a means to understand the U.S. culture, as a means to gain friends among Americans, and as a language of wider communication (Items 1. 2, and 3). By contrast, two-thirds of the Is somewhat disagreed with the statement of Item 4, which proposed English as a vehicle to assimilate to the U.S. way of life.

The items dealing with instrumental orientation explored the Is' evaluations of English for the job market, as a means of social interaction in the area, and as an educational resource. As the second part of Table 2 shows, the majority of the Is somewhat or strongly agreed that English was useful for getting a well-paid job and that the language was necessary to establish rapport with people in both Juarez and El Paso (Items 5 and 7). Significantly contrasting were the responses for Items 6 and 8. Only one-third of the Is confirmed that they needed English to maintain their positions (Item 6) while more than half claimed that the language was not a sine qua non to keep their jobs. With respect to Item 8, the response percentage shows a striking difference when compared to all the others; the

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TABLE 2. Response percentages: Attitudes toward English

1. Integrativeness 1 2 3 4 5 Total %

1. I study/studied English because I want/ed to understand the American people and their way of life. 15 9 5 17 54 100%

2. English will enable me to gain good friends among Americans. 12 9 4 20 55 100%

3. English will allow me to meet and converse with interesting and different people . 4 2 4 11 79 100%

4. Knowing English will enable me to think and behave as Americans do. 51 16 12 7 14 100%

I1. Instrumentality 1 2 3 4 5 Total %

5. 1 need English in the El Paso-Juarez area to get a good job. 12 2 6 21 59 100%

6. I need English to keep the job I have. 46 8 9 12 21 96%*

7. I need English for interrelationships with people in the El Paso-Juarez area. 11 7 5 20 57 100%

8. English will make me a better educated person.a 81 7 6 5 1 100%

Scale: I = Strongly disagree; 2 = Somewhat disagree; 3 = Uncertain; 4 = Somewhat agree; 5 = Strongly agree. aSince the expression "educated person" may be ambiguous in Spanish, it was clarified to the informants that the item meant 'a person with better formal instruction' and not a 'person with better social manners'. *Percentage is low because some respondents missed the items.

overwhelming majority of the Is (8i%) strongly disagreed with the statement extolling the value of English for general education. The results for Items 6 and 8 suggest that a good proportion of the respondents did not perceive English as vital or indispensable for upward mobility in Juarez society, though perhaps contributing toward it. Nonetheless, many border residents make efforts to pur- sue education in this language. This paradox may be explained by the values of formal education in Mexico, which are perhaps linked to individual pride and self-esteem. English may thus be judged as superfluous when people feel confi- dent about their skills, their training, and their education.

This research, as indicated by the findings in Table 2, failed to support the contrast between instrumental and integrative attitudes as addressed in the liter-

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ature. The findings of this study show that Mexicans perceive the value of the English language as equally instrumental and integrative.9 Thus, as a group, this sample of Juarez residents tended to display a combination of personal and material interests in the language spoken in the United States, because English contributes - at least in the eyes of some - to individual enrichment and upward mobility in Mexican society. The results of this section of the survey refute the first part of Hypothesis 1, that is, that the instrumental attitude would be significantly stronger than the integrative motivation. I

Attitudes, use, and local milieu When attitudes toward the integrative and instrumental values of English were considered as one single variable, attitudes toward English were associated with i) English use (r = .410, p < .oo), discussed above; and 2) local identity (r = .383, p < .oo i). Local identity was the variable created to explore the subjective appreciation and degree of attachment to the border on the basis of its mixed culture and lifestyle. I Whereas some people (e.g., the poor, unskilled, unem- ployed migrant from the interior of Mexico) may experience identity crises, anomic feelings, and social uprooting in the border, native residents perceive it as culturally and economically advantageous. These associations therefore suggest that i) those who use English with considerable frequency claim to appreci- ate it for instrumental and integrative reasons; and 2) those who feel a stronger identification with their city, perceive English as a worthy component of the local repertoire. The first correlation is relatively significant and thus validates Hypothesis 2, that formal training and informal exposure to English affected both instrumental and integrative attitudes. At the same time, the relationship between English use and local identity supported the second part of Hypothesis i, that community cultural beliefs, as well as the unique border milieu, influenced attitudes toward English. Over the years, Juarez residents have accepted both English and the U.S. mass culture because of the perceived benefits derived by contact with the United States. Liking and using English does not appear a threat to Juarez residents, for they learn English without relinquishing Spanish and can become comfortably bilingual as long as they feel they are using the two languages for different and independent purposes.

ATTITUDES TOWARD LOCAL VERSUS NATIONAL SPANISH

The third hypothesis was that Juarez residents would display favorable attitudes toward the Spanish spoken in Mexico City, for language varieties that have emanated from centers of great administrative, political, and economic power are normally considered "better" than those spoken in peripheral communities (Es- cobar 1976:55, 1978:162). Respondents confirmed that the variety of Spanish spoken in the Mexican capital is perceived as being more acceptable than the varieties utilized in the provinces. Table 3 indicates that almost one-half (47%)

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TABLE 3. Response percentages: Attitudes toward local versus national Spanish

Items 0 1 2 3 4 5 Total %

1. The Spanish spoken in Mexico City is more correct than that spoken in Juarez. 1 5 0 45 12 35 98%*

2. The Spanish spoken in Juarez is more correct than that spoken in other important cities of Mexico, e.g., Guadalajara. 18 14 17 41 2 2 94%*

3. The Spanish spoken in Juarez is more correct than that spoken in the capital of the state, Chihuahua. 13 5 13 57 9 2 99%

4. The Spanish spoken in Juarez is more correct than that spoken in Mexico City. 1 39 12 46 0 2 100%

Scale: 0 = Did not know; I = Strongly disagree; 2 = Rather disagree; 3 = They are the same; 4 = Somewhat agree; 5 = Strongly agree. *Percentage is low because some respondents missed the items.

of the Is somewhat or strongly agreed that the Spanish of Mexico City was more correct than the Spanish of Juarez (Item i). When the same question was re- versed in Item 4, the results were virtually the same: 51 percent rated their own variety as being less correct than that of Mexico City. On the other hand, sizeable proportions of Is perceived all the varieties of Mexican Spanish as equally correct (Column 3). Thus the responses of all the Is are divided in two groups: X) those who do not perceive significant differences between varieties, and 2) those who rate the local variety as being less correct than all the others.

Who rejects local Spanish and why The tendency to evaluate the Spanish spoken in Juarez as being less correct than other national varieties is characteristic of young college-educated bilingual adults coming from upper-upper, upper-middle, and middle-middle class backgrounds. 12 By contrast, less educated respondents proved to be "dialect-deaf," claiming to perceive a uniformity of speech within Mexico. This perception is based on the fact that differences between dialects are not so noticeable as to impede communication.

A series of intertwined factors may explain the attitudes of educated juarenses toward their own variety. First, the hegemony of the capital has not only affected the beliefs of educated individuals but those of researchers, who have claimed that the Speech of Mexico City is expected to be considered a "superior" norm (Lope Blanch 1972:9). Statements like this reflect, in turn, attitudes of internal colonialism, which appear to be detrimental to the inhabitants of Mexican

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provinces. The acceptance of the capital's speech is not exclusive to Mexico; on the contrary, it is widespread in some Western European and Latin American countries such as England, France, Peru, Argentina, and Colombia. '3 This linguistic colonialism seems to have reached, however, educated speakers who are more easily influenced by the prestige of the written language, supposedly epitomized in the "cultured" speech of the capital city (Escobar et al. 1975:48-49). Second, the beliefs about correctness have to do with the prescriptive doctrine of purism, which proposes the rejection of language mixture; this attitude prevails among sensitive educated speakers who may belittle those varieties which do not conform to the ideal linguistic norm based on the literary language, even if one of them is the speaker's form of speech. 14 In contrast, the awareness of such a linguistic norm among uneducated speakers is very limited, since their speech follows more spontaneously the regional/colloquial pattern. Educated border residents claimed that their variety could not be correct because they were able to recognize the gap between their spoken language and the general standard written language learned at school. One of the persons interviewed made the following revealing, if somewhat extreme, statement: "Nadie habla correctamente porque la lengua correcta solo existe en los libros y en ellos no se mezcla el ingles c(on el espanol." Finally, educated juarenses seem to react negatively toward their own variety, because they can objectively identify numerous lexical borrowings from English which inevitably creep into their daily speech. '5 The tendency to use anglicisms does not mean, however, that border residents have comfortably accepted their own behavior. On the contrary, it seems that they feel inclined - at least attitudinally - to uphold Mexican Spanish, as it is presumably utilized in the interior of Mexico.

In brief, the exploration of attitudes toward correctness revealed that educated middle class informants displayed concern for the issue and were indeed able to judge a specific variety as being more acceptable than another. The reactions of juarenses with respect to correctness do not seem to be exclusive to the Mexican border, for several authors have observed that educated speakers are more sensitive to the conservative forces prevailing in literate societies (Weinreich 1968:87-88) and respond more articulately to questions dealing with abstract notions such as "best language variety" (Labov 1966:406; Cohen 1974:33, 49). The results of this section of the survey support Hypothesis 3, that the prestigious language variety was perceived as "superior."

Language loyaltv It was also hypothesized that juarenses would display a rather strong appreciation for Spanish, since this code is not only their mother tongue but also a necessary vehicle to maintain ties with the local system as well as the national allegiance. Attitudinal language loyalty was also expected to be utilized by juarenses as a means to differentiate themselves from speakers of Spanish- English Code-switching residing in El Paso.

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The results of the survey confirmed that Juarez residents expressed strong attachments to Mexican Spanish. The questionnaire items elaborated for the study explored how juarenses feel about maintaining their language as it is presumably maintained in the rest of the country, that is, without the mixture of English. As Table 4 shows, the vast majority of the Is (83%) claimed that Spanish should be preserved in their city as in the interior of Mexico. Almost two-thirds of the sample (62%) agreed to an extent that border residents have the ability to speak their mother tongue as well as Mexicans from the interior. Slightly more than half (5 1%) of the Is denied that language mixture takes place in their community, and the same percentage believed that they as individual speakers do not mix the two languages. The response percentages in Item I show some contrast with those in Items 2 through 4. Whereas in Item I, the majority of the Is claimed that the Spanish of Juarez should be preserved as in the interior, a considerable percentage (30%) believed that juarenses DID NOT speak as well as other Mexicans, that language mixture DID occur in the community (42%), and that they, as individual speakers DID blend Spanish with English (47%).

The sociodemographic and linguistic characteristics of the Is with high scores in language loyalty were very diverse, scattered in all six socioeconomic groups, in both sexes, and in frequency of English use. When claiming attitudinal loyalty to Mexican Spanish, the simple assertion "I'm Mexican" was more important than SES, education, bilingualism, sex, age, or local identity.

Language loyalty seems to be a patent and unobstructed attitude which most border residents are willing to externalize at the slighest provocation, for they appear to have a subjective need for ethnic identity assertion. When confirming their loyalty to Spanish, they are implying that they want to be differentiated from the out-group, Mexican-Americans, residents of the twin city, El Paso, Texas.

TABLE 4. Response percentages: Language loyalty

Items 1 2 3 4 5 Total %

1. It is very important for border Mexicans to maintain the Spanish language just like other Mexicans. 2 8 6 8 75 99%

2. Border Mexicans are able to speak just like other Mexicans although sometimes they know English. 12 18 8 23 39 100%

3. In Juarez people mix the two languages when speaking. 42 9 6 9 33 99%

4. I speak sometimes mixing the two languages. 37 14 1 12 35 99%

Scale: I = Strongly disagree; 2 Rather disagree; 3 = Uncertain; 4 = Somewhat agree; 5 = Strongly agree

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For diverse reasons, sizeable proportions of Juarez residents claim to remain loyal to Mexican Spanish. First, since this variety is their mother tongue, it evokes highly symbolic values related to the emotional sphere. Second, as Mex- ican Spanish has undisputed supremacy throughout the country, juarenses perceive it as one of the means to express their feelings of solidarity and continuity with Mexico. Finally, Mexican Spanish is valued as a tool that can be used for economic, educational, and political advancement in Mexico. Individuals and communities tend to manifest sentimental and instrumental attachments to their native language when that language is a potentially unifying force for a national population (Kelman I974: I 94). In the city of Juarez as well as in the rest of the country, Spanish is seen as offering advantages of different sorts. Speaking "well," knowing "correct" Spanish, and using the national language without mixture are undoubtedly effective vehicles for achieving personal, social, and economic goals in Mexican society. If an individual fails to learn English but remains on the Mexican side of the border, he can work his way up by cultivating his mother tongue through formal education. A knowledge of standard Mexican Spanish is in fact essential for the attainment of important positions in the government. Those who lack the ability to use rhetorical formal Mexican Span- ish when campaigning for a public position may well be doomed to failure. Juarenses' adherence to the national code causes them to reject Code-switching, for this way of speaking represents the major threat to their historical struggle for language and identity preservation, as discussed in the section on setting and background. The results of this section validate Hypothesis 4, that Juarez residents would claim rather strong loyalty to the language spoken in Mexico. Language loyalty is in fact significantly correlated with the two attitudinal dimensions examined in the last two sections of this work.

THE INHERENT VALUES OF SPANISH-ENGLISH CODE-SWITCHING

The items created to explore how Juarez residents feel about the beauty, pleasantness, correctness, and ethnicity of the mixed language variety spoken in El Paso are presented in Table 5. The table reveals rather clearly that Code-switching (C-S) is held in low esteem by most Is. This low opinion of the inherent values of C-S is also apparent in the spontaneous comments offered by approximately one-half of the informants. 16

Table 5 shows that the majority of the Is (82%) strongly disagreed with the statement that the Spanish spoken in El Paso is more correct than that spoken in Juarez. Judgments about correctness were based on a perceived lack of for- mality, on a perceived striking influence of the English language, or on a combination of these two factors. The following opinion illustrates the issue: "En El Paso la gente no puede terminar en espanol lo que quiere decir. Muchas veces le falta el vocabulario que se aprende en la escuela y tiene que recurrir al ingles."

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TABLE 5. Response percentages: The inherent values of Code-switching


1. The Spanish spoken in El Paso is more correct than the Spanish spoken in Juarez. 82 0 13 0 2 97%*

2. The Mexicans from El Paso should imitate the Mexicans from Juarez when they speak Spanish. 1 2 14 14 11 49 100%

3. It sounds very pretty when the Mexicans from El Paso change from Spanish to English and from English to Spanish. 65 9 13 5 8 100%

4. It bothers me when the Mexicans from El Paso talk English and Spanish at the same time. 27 10 2 13 48 100%

Scale: I = Strongly disagree; 2 = Rather disagree; 3 = Uncertain; 4 = Somewhat agree; 5 = Strongly agree *Percentage is low because some respondents missed the items.

With respect to Item 2, almost two-thirds (6o%) of the Is strongly or somewhat agreed that the Mexicans of El Paso should imitate the Spanish of Mexicans from Juarez. The most representative judgments have to do with ethnic identity; for example: "Si los de El Paso quieren liamarse mexicanos, deberian hablar como los de Juarez porque Juarez es el modelo mas cercano a la manera de hablar de los mexicanos."

With respect to Item 3, nearly three-fours (74%) of the entire sample disagreed with the statement that it sounds pretty when people change continuously from Spanish to English and vice versa. Finally, almost two-thirds (61 %) of the Is confessed that it annoys them to hear C-S.

Who rejects Code-switching for its inherent values and why Although it was not hypothesized that Mexican women would reject C-S more strongly than men, it was found that the former displayed overt negative feelings toward this language variety. (Sex and the inherent values of C-S are correlated at .344, p < .OI). When expressing value judgments, women utilized the same kind of supplementary remarks reported by Labov (I966:499). Mexican women externalized their disparagement of C-S in statements such as: "Se oye muy feo." "Espantoso." "Me molesta." "Me cae mal." In contrast, most male informants claimed not to feel annoyed by constant C-S, although about one-half of them DID consider it incorrect and de-ethnicized.

It was found, too, that individuals with high scores in language loyalty ver-

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balized their rejection of C-S. (Language loyalty and the inherent values of C-S were correlated at .455, p. < .ooi.) According to Weinreich (1968:77-78), the attachments to the mother tongue make a person rationalize that his native language is richer, more subtle, and more expressive than others. This concept of language loyalty "would seem to be a specific forrn of ethnocentrism, which is of special significance because of the fundamental and highly visible association between a group of persons and the language they speak" (Taylor & Simard 1975:246).

As reported by Trudgill and Giles (1978), judgments about the correctness, adequacy, and aesthetics of nonstandard languages and language varieties appear to be related to social judgments rather than to linguistic judgments per se. With respect to values of correctness, Trudgill and Giles have discussed the various nonstandard features of the English language and have stated: "grammatical forms which are most typical of working-class dialects have low status because of their associations with groups who have low prestige in our society. This low status leads to the belief that these forms are 'bad' and they are therefore judged to be 'wrong' " (170). Similarly, opinions about aesthetics have no place in the objective evaluation of language. After examining judgmental opinions of several languages and language varieties, Trudgill and Giles have proposed a flexible hypothesis accounting for the relativity of linguistic value judgments: ""aesthetic judgments of linguistic varieties are the result of a complex of social connotations that these varieties have for particular listeners . . . . Connotations of this type are by no means only a question of prestige or lack of it, and crucially, they can and do vary within cultures" (180).17 This "hypothesis of social connotations" may account for the relationship between the merits of a language and the connotations they evoke in the minds of members of a particular group. Under this conceptual framework, if social connotations of a language variety are not known to an individual, he/she will not be capable of ranking it aesthetically relative to other varieties.

The "hypothesis of social connotations" might thus help explain that Mex- icans' judgments about C-S are not accidental, but rather the result of a complex of social, cultural, personal and ethnic associations and prejudices. The general belief prevailing in Mexico since the late nineteenth century, when masses of Mexicans emigrated to the United States, is that emigration north of the border is a denigrating process which involves not only economic exploitation but also the loss of the national language and cultural values. Thus, when Mexicans evaluate C-S, they partially base their judgment on Mexican-Americans' status in the United States. In brief, C-S may draw forth not only one particular reaction but a multiplicity of biased meanings which are conveyed through values of correctness, beauty, pleasantness, and ethnicity. I would venture to conclude in this section that the community investigated is not unique in its appreciation of C-S. The belief that Mexican-Americans - speakers of Code-switching - are no longer part of the Mexican mainstream is widespread throughout the country,

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and its beginnings must be traced to the war in the mid-nineteenth century, when Mexico lost the southwestern states that now belong to the United States.

The communicative values of Code-switching The second set of items was created in order to explore how Mexicans feel about communicating with Mexican-Americans and how they may react to the use of continuous C-S. The items and the results are presented in Table 6, which shows that slightly more than two-thirds (69%) of the Is strongly or somewhat agreed with Items I and 2. This majority reported that Mexican-Americans can actually speak Spanish but that they pretend not to know it. On the other hand, Items 3 and 4 show that about one-half of all Is claimed not to understand Mexican- Americans when they switch continuously. Presented in an impersonal phrasing, these two items served to draw out a number of unsolicited comments regarding communication difficulties which were attributed to the "unexpected" changes from one language to another.

Who rejects Code-switching for its communicative values and why The reasons underlying the rejection of C-S for its communicative values are: x) low frequency of English use and 2) sentiments of language loyalty. (The first variable is correlated with the communicative values of C-S at - .328, p < .01 and the second one at .410, p < .ooI.) First, those juarenses who reported using

TABLE 6. Response percentages: The communicative values of Code-switching


1. Those Mexicans who emigrate to El Paso never forget their language. 40 29 9 14 7 99%

2. Mexicans from Juarez do not really need to know English since they can communicate in Spanish with Mexicans from El Paso. 61 8 9 14 7 99%

3. It is impossible to understand what Mexicans from El Paso say when they mix the two languages. 24 29 8 15 22 98%*

4. One can mix the two languages - Spanish and English - as the Mexicans of El Paso do, and still understand what people say. 21 22 11 20 22 96%*

Scale: I = Strongly disagree; 2 - Rather disagree; 3 = Uncertain; 4 = Somewhat agree; 5 = Strongly agree *Total percentage is low because some respondents missed the items.

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English infrequently reacted negatively toward C-S because of their limited bilingual abilities. Second, those Is who believed that the Spanish in Juarez has been maintained and should be maintained without the mixture of English also rejected C-S because they did not identify with it.

The "Theory of Speech Accommodation" advanced by Giles, Bourhis, and Taylor (1977) may help explain the attitudes of Mexicans toward C-S. This theory proposes that "the extent to which individuals shift their speech style toward, or away from the speech style of their interlocutors is a mechanism by which social approval or disapproval is communicated. A shift toward that of another is termed convergence, whereas a shift from the other's style represents divergence" (322).

Under this framework and taking into account the accent and speech style shifts of French-Canadian and Welsh speakers, Bourhis, Giles, and Lambert (0975) carried out two experiments. This first one was designed so that French- Canadian Is would hear a speaker of Canadian French (CF) accommodating to a speaker of European French (EF) by either switching from his CF to EF (upward convergence), by switching from his former CF to popular French (downward convergence), or by showing no accommodation. In the second study, South Welsh listeners heard a mildly accented speaker accommodating to a speaker of standard accent or Received Pronunciation by switching to this prestigious variety (upward convergence), by switching to a broader Welsh accent (downward convergence), or by showing no accommodation (i.e., making no change from a mild Welsh accent). It was found in both Canada and Britain that upward convergence was associated with an increase in perceived intelligence by listeners. Although crossnational consistency is apparent in that upward convergence is associated with increased intelligence in both cultures, in Britain speakers adopting a standard speech style will, in addition, be perceived as less trustworthy and kind than those who maintain their own speech style. If speakers in the British setting emphasize their identity with members of the out-group (by means of downward convergence), they will be perceived as more trustworthy and kind than had they just maintained their identity through speech (i.e., used their mild Welsh accent), since in Wales, a broadening of Welsh accent can be taken as a reflection of speakers' desire to emphasize their national identity. This is not the case, however, among people in Quebec.

These two studies looked into the social consequences that follow when speakers accommodate or fail to accommodate their speech with reference to their interlocutor. In applying these propositions to the El Paso-Juarez setting, I assume that Mexicans fail to switch continuously from Spanish to English and vice versa (even when they are bilingual), because C-S is not the speech style which reflects social status or intelligence or any other positive moral trait. On the contrary, they consider that adopting C-S downgrades their own language. At the same time, Mexicans perceive that Mexican-Americans do not accommodate to Spanish-only speech style because the latter do not identify with it.

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In addition, negative reactions toward C-S may arise in the El Paso area due to the linguistic heterogeneity of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. Whereas both groups appear ethnically homogeneous, they vary along a continuum from predominantly monolingual in Spanish to predominantly monolingual in English. Failures in communication between groups are thus perceived as originating from Mexicans' limited abilities in English and from Mexican-Americans' limited abilities in Spanish. The most common opinions of Is who did not know English were expressed in the following statements:

No todo se entiende. Muchas veces hay que adivinar lo que la gente quiere dec ir c uando mezcla los dos idiomas.

A veces ellos no nos entienden a nosotros. Hay que decir las cosas de varias maneras, v cuando uno no sabe ingles hay que darle muchas vueltas en espafiol.

The reports provided by bilingual Is led me to assume that those who are proficient in English may adopt one of the two following strategies when communicating with Mexican-Americans: I) they switch their Spanish-only style to an inconspicuous intersentential C-S, showing a moderate attitude of c on- vergence; 2) they maintain their Spanish-only style but respond to messages in English or in C-S in their own style; this would be an example of no ac commoda- tion. Monolingual individuals, on the other hand, expressed an attitude of divergence, because they claimed to feel annoyed, irritated, and sometimes abused by the use of continuous C-S. Monolinguals are therefore more likely to feel disori- ented and dissociated from speakers of C-S in the context of El Paso.

As in the case of attitudes toward correctness, perceptions of C-S emanate from various interconnected and complex factors. On the one hand, there exist objective linguistic obstacles, such as the lack of proficiency in English or lack of proficiency in C-S; on the other hand, attitudinal conflicts seem to hamper verbal communication, especially when unexpected, fortuitous encounters occur. Mex- icans perceive Spanish as a component of their identity and may or may not identify with Mexican-Americans. When Mexican-Americans switch continuously, Mexicans tend to remain aloof, but if Mexican-Americans maintain the Spanish-only style to which Mexicans strongly adhered, the latter may readily identify with the former. 18

In sum, there seems to be more of a dissociative motivation and behavior between Mexican and Mexican-Americans. According to Bourhis, Giles, and Lambert (1975), speech divergence is adopted when speakers wish to emphasize their group identity or when they disapprove of their listeners for attitudinal- personality reasons. Thus, language divergence between both groups may be related to a desire of expressing their own authenticities and loyalties. Further- more, ethnic affiliation may be important for both groups, inasmuch as they

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constantly interact with each other and may consider the "other" group a relevant out-group from which they both want to distinguish themselves. Under these circumstances, it has been argued, members of contrasting ethnic groups may accentuate the values of ethnic distinctiveness and use them in an attempt to maximize their differences (Giles 1979).

SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS, AND IMPLICATIONS

Ciudad Juarez, the oldest and largest city along the Mexican-U.S. border, was severed from El Paso, Texas, when the Mexican-American war (I1846-48) imposed an international frontier through the town. Juarez's growth and prosperity has been historically interdependent with the United States, and its inhabitants, predominantly monolingual Spanish speakers, have regular contacts with the other ethnolinguistic groups of the area, that is, Anglo-Americans and Mexican- Americans. The exploration of attitudes toward English, Spanish, and Spanish- English Code-switching - the three linguistic codes spoken by the three major groups of the border region -was carried out through personal interviews conducted in 1980-8! with eighty-five Juarez residents of diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds.

The research embodied in this study led to the conclusion that the city of Juarez proved to be a highly appropriate location for testing a number of assumptions about language attitudes and language use. The results showed that Juarez residents exhibited a complex and somewhat contradictory pattern of attitudes and use, as summarized here:

i. Having access to formal instruction in English, informal exposure through the mass media, and habitual dealings with people from the United States, the higher status and higher income juarenses claimed to use English more frequently. Almost all the Is reported speaking English occasionally and well over half reported listening to U.S. radio and television daily. The use of English occurs in specific sites within the city and normally has a given communicative purpose.

2. In contrast with other settings in which attitudes toward English have been investigated, the Mexican border seems to foster a balanced combination of instrumental and integrative attitudes toward English. As a whole, the Is interviewed displayed both types of orientation and responded to the questionnaire items as though there were no practical distinction between instrumentality and integrativeness.

3. The hypothesis regarding the relationship between attitudes toward and use of English was shown to be positive and relatively significant. Given the paucity of research focusing on the distinct connection between language attitudes and language use, this particular discovery is worthy of attention in future studies.

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Likewise, the impact of the local milieu in the formation of language attitudes and its relationship with use of language for specific communicative functions were both found to be significant.

4. Educated middle-class informants perceived that their own colloquial variety of Spanish lacked values of correctness, for in their eyes it did not conform to the rules of the Spanish spoken in Mexico City, the capital of the country. At the same time, Juarez residents highlighted their subjective need for identification with Mexico and their emotional attachments to the variety of Spanish spoken in the country, expressing with this attitude their feelings of solidarity and continuity with the Mexican system.

5. Claiming loyalty to Spanish seems to be one of the means utilized by Mexicans to assert their ethnic identity. As a result, Juarez residents tend to denigrate Code-switching through the denial of its inherent values of pleasantness, beauty, ethnicity, and correctness, and through reported difficulties of communication with native code-switchers. It seemed to this researcher that almost all the residents of Juarez had at least one reason to evaluate Code- switching unfavorably.

The findings of this work may imply that there exist causal links between sociodemographic factors and language attitudes and language use. In this case, SES and formal education in English appear as directly affecting the use of English. In like manner, SES and education influence attitudes toward local Spanish. The sex of the informant, on the other hand, has an effect on attitudes toward the inherent values of C-S. This unidirectional relationship is not by any means the only approach to the findings of this study, for language plays a dynamic, creative role in the formation of attitudes and in the definition of identity. This proposition is evidenced by the fact that English use exercises a significant effect on attitudes - toward English, toward local Spanish, and toward C-S - and by the fact that language lovalty, the most easily observable attitude and deeply rooted mental barrier in most border residents, turns out twice to be significantly related with attitudes toward C-S. Thus, if English use and language lovalty were considered predictors of language attitudes, it would be possible to propose a major theoretical implication: In those milieux in which speakers of equally vital languages coexist, come into conflict, and hence, willingly or unwillingly, accentuate the significance of certain features, usages, or sentiments, language per se may be considered a variable independent of sociodemographic factors.

In the Mexican border environment, English use and language loyalty are distinctive sociolinguistic dimensions which are derived by: I) intense contact with and systematic dependence on the United States, and 2) the presence of a group of speakers of C-S. The independent significance of specific manifesta- tions of language behavior is magnified on the border due to the intensity, multidirectionality, and hence conflictive nature of social contacts. Language

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attitudes and behavior should thus be addressed in a global context, that is, from the viewpoint of the interactional dynamics of the two sides, and not as if the border reality ended where the political-territorial demarcation ends, since border interactions often reflect peculiar and relatively autonomous cultural patterns.

Recent attempts to conceptually define the Mexican-U.S. border and other borders of the world suggest that the border is the site whiere major tensions, conflicts, and contradictions coexist because of the arbitrary demarcations amidst the human and cultural situations along its path (Bustamante I98I; Asiwaju 1983). According to Asiwaju, the structures and functions of all borders are essentially identical and have provided a framework generating similar and sometimes identical issues. However, the Mexican-U.S. border is the one and only one where a fully "developed" industrialized society and a superpower is found in direct juxtaposition with a "developing Third World" country, a factor that expands each of the features and problems encountered on any other border. '9

This juxtaposition may help explain why border residents manifested some contradictory patterns of attitudes and use. For example, whereas English is undeniably useful to make a better living in Juarez, about one-half of the Is claimed not to need English to maintain their positions; and whereas more than a third studied English in the United States about 8o percent claimed that the language was not necessary to be an educated person. Also, while juarenses expressed nationalistic sentiments and identified themselves as Mexicans, they also sustained a local identity which is paradoxically linked to positive English use and positive attitudes toward English. In addition, even though a considerable proportion of the Is rejected C-S because they perceived it as being incorrect and mixed, one-half of them evaluated poorly their own variety for the very same reasons; and although border residents (83%) insisted on the importance of language maintenance, about a third (30%) doubted that they were succeeding.

Inasmuch as the Mexican-U.S. border was demarcated without any regard for the pre-existing ethnic entities, Mexicans have been artificially separated from their Mexican-American kin to the north. This partition has given rise to numerous language contacts with other groups, to attitudinal language loyalty, and to prejudices and desires for ethnolinguistic distinctiveness.211 Consequently, national and ethnic identity contains subtle and intriguing ambiguities that are worth exploring through concepts and methods advanced in the language sciences. Language sciences could be incorporated to the nascent multidisciplinary analysis of localized impacts of borders. According to Asiwaju (1983:27-29), such an analysis represents a major innovation in the study of contradictions of human behavior and in the understanding of the border inhabitants, who often suffer disruptions beyond the imagination of those who do not have a first-hand knowledge of frontier communities.

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NOTES

* Part of this research was carried out thanks to the support of the TINKER Foundation. This paper was completed under the auspices of the Center of Inter-American and Border Studies, University of Texas at El Paso. I. Pocho refers pejoratively to the person of Mexican descent whose lifestyle and behavior are notoriously Americanized. 2. Bustamante (1982) defines English use as the sporadic interference of words and phrases into the Spanish discourse and to the utilization of borrowings, brand names, and business names of the foreign language. This.definition differs considerably from my own, as reported in Table I. 3. For discussions and references on diverse approaches to the study of language attitudes, see Ryan (1979, 1983), Eisenstein (1983), and Giles and Edwards (1983). 4. Pocho, Spanglish, or Code-switching refer to the style of communication which is characteristic of individuals of Mexican descent inhabiting El Paso in the Southwest region of the United States. In this paper I use the scholarly term Spanish-English Code-switching, which is defined as the alternating, continuous, and systematic stretches of Spanish and English in the same discourse. This use of language is not to be confused with what Bustamante (1982) defines as English use, for Code-switching represents the most extreme mixture of languages. 5. An undetermined number of children and youngsters from Juarez commute daily to El Paso to attend elementary school, secondary school, college, or ESL courses. Although their education in English seems to have been erratic, about a third of the people interviewed claimed to have attended U.S. schools. 6. Lic. Luis Garcia de la Rosa, Director de Desarrollo Socioecon6mico, Municipio de Cd. Juarez, advised me to measure SES by considering income, residence, and father's occupation. He provided the scales utilized for the first two variables. The scale for income corresponds to ig80-81 and was originally specified in Mexican currency, which I converted to U.S. currency at the then rate of 26.50 pesos to a dollar. 7. The criteria utilized to discuss this and all subsequent correlations are p < .ooi and p < .01. 8. The most commonly reported practices of English use were: X) speaking to American tourists or clients visiting the establishments where Is worked; 2) listening to musical radio broadcasts because of the quality of music programs or by pure chance; 3) watching television series, movies, or sports; and 4) reading books and magazines according to taste and need. Is claimed that these practices were enjoyable and conducive to personal enrichment and growth. 9. Taken as separate variables, attitudes toward integrativeness have a higher mean (x = 3.65) than attitudes toward instrumentality (x = 3.15) on the 5-point scale. To further validate the hypothesis that these two orientations do not contrast significantly, another test was applied to the eight questionnaire items: Their scores were correlated among themselves and the results turned out very similar. The mean of the correlation coefficient for integrativeness was slightly higher (x = 2.54) than the mean of the correlation coefficient for instrumentality (x = 2.32). The difference between means was not substantially significant enough to warrant running a statistical test of significance. 10. In their study among Chinese speakers, Oller et al. (1977) adapted questionnaire items from Gardner and Lambert (1972), which could roughly be differentiated into "integrative" and "instrumental" with considerable residue of ambiguity. While my own findings seem to contradict the general trend on attitudes toward English, that the instrumental motive is higher among Is, Oller et al. have observed that direct questions about attitudes toward English are subject to a great deal of variable interpretation, which changes according to individuals and cultural contexts. The results of my study therefore contribute to the call for a redefinition of the now classical conceptualization of integrativeness and instrumentality, as suggested by Oller et al. II. Local identity is the four-item variable ex prlefsso created for this study in order to explore the level of adjustment to the traditionally unique lifestyle of the border. The results show that the great majority of the Is were consistently positive when evaluating the city of Juarez. On the whole, more than three-fourths of the Is strongly or somewhat agreed with items focusing on local pride, social adjustment, and cultural advantages of the border. On the other hand, about one-fourth of the Is expressed feelings of discomfort and resented having been dislocated from their places of origin. This minority had previously lived (as children or as adults) in the interior of Mexico. Their attitudes toward English were ambiguous or somewhat negative, and their use of English was rather low.

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12. A low evaluation of local Spanish is correlated with SES (r =- .473, p < .oo 0), education (r =- .463, p < .oo0), instruction in English (r -.453, p < .oo0), and English use (r -.380, p < .00). 13. The acceptance of the capital speech has not been extensively documented in studies on language attitudes, but scholars such as Malmberg (1966), Giles and Powesland (1975), and Escobar (1976, 1978) have reported it as a fact in different parts of the world. 14. There is the widespread belief that the Spanish spoken in the Mexican capital should be accepted as the norm throughout the country, even though no empirical evidence supports this belief. The linguistic norm is defined as an average representation of language whose variability is not questioned and the belief supported by the international project entitled 'Estudio Coordinado de la norma linguiistica de las principales ciudades de Iberoam6rica." In a future project, this writer will attempt to demonstrate that there exists a relative linguistic uniformity in provincial communities (northern frontiers included) characterized by the processes of urbanization and standardization ("Styles and variations of Mexican Spanish," in preparation). 15. The anglicisms and borrowings from English used in Juarez have been introduced primarily through contact with Chicanos rather than through direct contact with Americans. For numerous examples and discussions, see Moreno de Alba (1981) and Hidalgo (1983: Chapter 4). i6. It is known that languages do not possess inherent values of beauty, correctness, or pleasantness, but the general public tends to believe that some languages are more aesthetic or correct than others. These "inherent" values are associated with prestige, power, or status, as demonstrated by Trudgill and Giles (1978). 17. Trudgill and Giles examined evaluations of varieties of English, French, and Greek. They used two main hypotheses (the "inherent value hypothesis" and the "imposed norm hypothesis") that were nullified because the results indicated that Is are generally unable to assign uniform aesthetic and prestige merits to all varieties, given that their connotations change from place to place. i8. Various sources suggest that language is one of the fundamental components of identity and that individuals tend to identify with those who speak the same language rather than with those who share the same cultural background. (Taylor et al. I973; Giles et al. 1974). The assumption that Mexicans and Mexican-Americans tend to dissociate from each other finds further corroboration in the fact that C-S is the code through which a number of Mexican-Americans manifest their in-group membership (Gumperz & Hernandez-Chavez 1975; Elfas-Olivares 1976; Huerta 1978). I9. As convoluted as the Mexican-U.S. border is the Uruguayan-Brazilian border, examined by Elizaincin (I977) and characterized by problems of Spanish-Portuguese diglossia/bilingualism, reciprocal and intense language interferences, intricate dialect/creole contacts, sentiments of loyalty to Spanish and standardization campaigns. 20. In addition to having contact with Americans, Juarez residents are exposed to the Europeans of German and Italian descent stationed in Fort Bliss, and to the Asian, Middle Eastern, and African students attracted by the University of Texas at El Paso. English serves, of course, as a lingua franca when Mexicans and speakers of other languages need to communicate. The diversity of communication networks in an open international frontier has contributed to the spread of English as an additional language, and the language usefulness has in turn contributed to its being highly valued by Juarez residents, as discussed in the section on attitudes toward English and English use.

REFERENCES

Asiwaju, W . I. (1983). Borderlands research: A comparative perspective. (Center for Interamerican and Border Studies. Border Perspectives No. 6.) El Paso: University of Texas.

Bourhis, R. Y., Giles, H., & Lambert, W. (1975). Social consequences of accommodating one's style of speech: A cross-national investigation. International Journal of the Sociology of Language 6:55-72.

Bustamante, J. (1981). La interacci6n social en la frontera norte Mexico-Estados Unidos: Un marco conceptual para la investigaci6n. In R. Gonzalez Salazar (ed.), La frontera norte: Integraci6n v desarrollo. Mexico: El Colegio de Mexico. 26-45.

(1982). Uso del idioma e identidad nacional. Tijuana, B.C.: Centro de Estudios Fronterizos del Norte de Mexico.

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Article Contentsp. 193p. 194p. 195p. 196p. 197p. 198p. 199p. 200p. 201p. 202p. 203p. 204p. 205p. 206p. 207p. 208p. 209p. 210p. 211p. 212p. 213p. 214p. 215p. 216p. 217p. 218p. 219p. 220

Issue Table of ContentsLanguage in Society, Vol. 15, No. 2 (Jun., 1986), pp. 149-294Front MatterLinguistic Variation, Context, and Meaning: A Case of -Ing/in' Variation in North American Workers' Speech [pp. 149-163]The Social Identity of Welsh Learners [pp. 165-191]Language Contact, Language Loyalty, and Language Prejudice on the Mexican Border [pp. 193-220]Five Visions of America [pp. 221-240]ReviewsDiscourseReview: untitled [pp. 241-245]Review: untitled [pp. 245-250]

Ethnography of SpeakingReview: untitled [pp. 250-257]

VariationReview: untitled [pp. 257-262]Review: untitled [pp. 262-264]

Language Varieties and SituationsReview: untitled [pp. 264-269]Review: untitled [pp. 269-273]

Perspectives and Critical ModelsReview: untitled [pp. 273-280]Review: untitled [pp. 280-284]

Brief NoticesReview: untitled [pp. 285-286]Review: untitled [pp. 286-288]Review: untitled [pp. 288-289]Review: untitled [pp. 289-290]

Publications Received [pp. 290-294]Back Matter

language contact language loyalty and language prejudice

Documents

language prejudice

study of language attitudes

fields of language attitudes

influence of language

sentiments of language

manifold language setting

terms conditions of

border studies