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New Approaches to Language Attitudes in the Hispanic and Lusophone World
Edited by Talia Bugel and Cecilia Montes-Alcalá
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 25] 2020
► pp. 231–252

Spanish-speaking immigrants in Indiana

A quantitative exploration of their attitudes towards Spanish

| Texas A&M University Corpus Christi

This study investigated the language attitudes of Spanish-speaking immigrants in Indiana. One hundred participants completed sociodemographic and language attitudes questionnaires. The results from the questionnaires were statistically analyzed to establish the participants’ attitudes towards each of the four analyzed components (Spanish in general, Spanish in the U.S., Spanish language maintenance, and Spanish/English bilingualism) and the relationships between participants’ attitudes and sociodemographic factors. The analysis revealed positive attitudes towards Spanish in general (M = 4.41, SD = 0.5) and Spanish in the U.S. (M = 4.05, SD = 0.84) and moderately positive attitudes towards Spanish language maintenance (M = 3.64, SD = 1.08) and Spanish/English bilingualism (M = 3.67, SD = 0.9). The data also indicated that education is a powerful predictor of positive attitudes towards three of the four language attitude components among this population.

Keywords: attitudes, Spanish in the U.S., education, maintenance, bilingualism
Article outline
  • Introduction
    • Language attitudes components
    • Language attitudes and sociodemographic factors
  • Methods
    • Participants
    • Materials
  • Results
    • Gender
    • Age
    • Length of stay in the U.S.
    • Education
  • Discussion and conclusion
  • References
Published online: 30 April 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.25.10bar
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