Cover not available
Part of
Questioning Theoretical Primitives in Linguistic Inquiry: Papers in honor of Ricardo Otheguy
Edited by Naomi Shin and Daniel Erker
[Studies in Functional and Structural Linguistics 76] 2018
► pp. 209–244

Reviving the unicorn

Linguistic reconsiderations for the existence of Spanglish

| College of William & Mary
This chapter engages the debate on the term Spanglish. Ricardo Otheguy asserts that the term Spanglish has no real-world referent and is “technically flawed.” In response, it is argued that the term Spanglish is neither objectively inaccurate nor technically flawed because the term Spanglish refers to a ‘real’ linguistic phenomenon. Furthermore, the necessary conditions for labeling linguistic varieties as varieties are theoretically untenable or practically unimplementable. The chapter also highlights that linguistic systems are mental objects whose existence is inferred from behavioral epiphenomena and that such a set of behavioral epiphenomena is in evidence for Spanglish. The chapter concludes that sufficient linguistic and sociolinguistic evidence exists to posit the existence of, and thereby justify the use of, the term Spanglish.
Keywords: Spanglish, Spanish in the U.S., glottonyms, onomastics, naming, linguistic autonomy, linguistic differentiation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A summary and deconstruction of Otheguy on Spanglish
  • 3.A critique of Otheguy’s criteria for glottonymic differentiation in linguistic science
    • 3.1The criterion of systemic difference: Must a variety differ in its system in order to justify glottonymic differentiation?
    • 3.2The criterion of sufficient minimal difference: How much must linguistic systems differ to be considered different languages?
      • 3.2.1Glottonymic differentiation and the lexicon
      • 3.2.2Glottonymic differentiation and syntax
    • 3.3The uniqueness criterion: Must linguistic features or processes characterizing a speech way be unique to merit glottonymic differentiation?
  • 4.On the implementation of linguistic analytical methods, the application of scientific principles and necessary conditions for naming
    • 4.1Atomistic analysis in defining linguistic varieties: A problematic implementation of analytical methods
    • 4.2Axioms of science, names and their referents
      • 4.2.1Plurality is not to be posited unnecessarily: A problematic application of Ockham’s Razor
      • 4.2.2The morphological composition of names should be ontologically transparent: A problematic perspective on the relationship between a name and its referent
  • 5.On duolingual discourse of the Latino community and Spanglish: What now?
    • 5.1Do duolingual practices constitute a linguistic variety?
    • 5.2Can Spanglish be called a ‘language’?
      • 5.2.1Spanglish as mental object and the ontological status of linguistic entities
      • 5.2.2The behavioral epiphenomena of Spanglish
      • 5.2.3Spanglish as sociolinguistic language
  • 6.Summary and concluding statements
  • Notes
  • Works cited
  • Other sources consulted
Published online: 6 December 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sfsl.76.10var
References

Works cited

Algeo, J.
with the assistance of A. Algeo (Eds.) (1991) Fifty years among the new words: A dictionary of neologisms, 1941–1991. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Baker, M.
(2001) The atoms of language: The mind’s hidden rules of grammar. New York, NY: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Bell, R.
(1976) Sociolinguistics: Goals, approaches and problems. London, England: Batsford.Google Scholar
Boehner, P., O.F.M.
(Ed.) (1990) Ockham: Philosophical writings, A selection. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing.Google Scholar
Bybee, J.
(2015) Language change. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chomsky, N.
(1965) Aspects of the theory of syntax. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Debate sobre el término “Spanglish” entre los profesores Ricardo Otheguy y Ana Celia Zentella
(2009) Conference on Spanish in the U.S., Miami, FL. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Donnellan, K.
(1966) Reference and definite descriptions. Philosophical Review, 75, 281–304. (Reprinted from The philosophy of language (4th ed.), pp. 247–258, A. Martinich, Ed. 2001, Oxford, England: Oxford University Press)Google Scholar
Erker, D.
(2017) The limits of named language varieties and the role of social salience in dialectal contact: The case of Spanish in the United States. Language and Linguistics Compass, 11, e12232. Retrieved from [URL] DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Finkenstaedt, T. & Wolff, D.
(1973) Ordered profusion: Studies in dictionaries and the English lexicon. Heidelberg, Germany: C. Winter Universitätsverlag.Google Scholar
García, O., Evangelista, I., Martínez, M., Disla, C., & Paulino, B.
(1988) Spanish language use and attitudes: A study of two New York City Communities. Language in Society, 17, 475–511. Retrieved from [URL] DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Greenberg, J.
(1963) Universals of language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Gumperz, J. J., & Wilson, R.
(1971) Convergence and creolization: A case from the Indo-Aryan/Dravidian border in India. In D. Hymes (Ed.), Pidginization and Creolization of Languages (pp. 151–167). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Haegeman, L.
(1994) Introduction to government and binding theory (2nd ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Haspelmath, M.
(2017) Some principles for language names. Language Documentation and Conservation, 11, 81–93. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Kripke, S.
(1981) Naming and necessity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Labov, W.
(2001) Principles of linguistic change (Vol. 2): Social factors. [Language in Society 29.] Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Lakoff, G.
(1990) Women, fire and dangerous things: What categories reveal about the mind. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
List of portmanteaus
. Wikpedia. Retrieved from [URL]. Last accessed September 2017.Google Scholar
MacSwan, J.
(2017) A multilingual perspective on translanguaging. American Education Research Journal, 54, 167–201.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mulder, J.
(1993) How real are linguistic entities. La linguistique, 29(2), 141–167. Retrieved from [URL]Google Scholar
Muysken, P.
(1981) Halfway between Quechua and Spanish: The case for relexification. In A. Highfield, & A. Valdman (Eds.), Historicity and variation in creole studies (pp. 52–78). Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma.Google Scholar
(1997) Media Lengua. In S. G. Thomason (Ed.), Contact languages: A wider perspective (pp. 365–426). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, R.
(2007) La filología y el unicornio: El verdadero referente del vocablo Spanglish y su función como adjudicador en posiciones de poder en la población de origen hispano en los EEUU. In Enric Serra Alegre (Ed.), La incidencia del contexto en los discursos (pp. 5–19). Minneapolis, MN: Department of Spanish and Portuguese/València, Spain: Departament de Teoria des Llenguatges i Cièncias de la Comunicació.Google Scholar
(2013) Convergencia conceptual y la sobrestimación de la presencia de elementos estructurales ingeles en el español estadounidense. In D. Dumitrescu, & G. Piña-Rosales (Eds.), El español en los Estados Unidos: E pluribus unum? Enfoques multidisciplinarios (pp. 129–150). New York, NY: Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (ANLE).Google Scholar
Otheguy, R., & García, O.
(1988) Diffusion of lexical innovations in the Spanish of Cuban Americans. In J. Ornstein-Galicia, G. Green, & D. Bixler-Márquez (Eds.), Research issues and problems in United States Spanish: Latin American and Southwestern varieties (pp. 203–243). Brownsville, TX: Pan American University.Google Scholar
Otheguy, R., García, O., & Reid, W.
(2015) Clarifying translanguaging and deconstructing named languages: A perspective from linguistics. Applied Linguistics Review, 6, 281–307. Retrieved from DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, R., & Stern, N.
(2010) On so-called Spanglish. International Journal of Bilingualism, 15, 85–100.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Otheguy, R., & Zentella, A. C.
(2012) Spanish in New York: Language contact, dialectal leveling, and structural continuity. Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pyles, T., & Algeo, J.
(1993) The origins and development of the English language (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Heinle.Google Scholar
Roca, A.
(2000) El español en los EEUU a principios del siglo XXI: Apuntes relativos a la investigación sobre la variedad de la lengua y la coexistencia con el inglés en las comunidades bilingúes. In J. Calvo Pérez (Ed.), Teoría y práctica del contacto: El español de América en el candelero (pp. 193–211). Madrid, Spain: Editorial Iberoamericana / Frankfurt, Germany: Verguet Verlag.Google Scholar
Saussure, F.
(1959) A course in general linguistics. New York, NY: The Philosophical Library.Google Scholar
(1966) Course in general linguistics. New York, NY: McGraw Hill.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, C.
(2002) Language contact and change: Spanish in Los Angeles. Oxford, England: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Simons, G.
(1979) Language variation and limits to communication (Technical Report No. 3). Ithaca, NY: Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Tetel Andresen, J., & Carter, P.
(2016) Chapter 3: Classifying languages. In Languages in the world: How history, culture, and politics shape language (pp. 40–61). Malden, MA: Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Thomason, S.
(1995) Language mixture: ordinary processes, extraordinary results. In C. Silva-Corvalán (Ed.), Spanish in four continents: Studies in language contact and bilingualism (pp. 15–33). Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar
(1997) A typology of contact languages. In A. Spears, & D. Winford (Eds.), The structure and status of pidgins and creoles: Including selected papers from meetings of the Society for Pidgin and Creole linguistics (pp. 71–88). Amsterdam, The Netherlands/Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(2001) Language contact: An introduction. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Thomason, S., & Kaufman, T.
(1988) Language contact, creolization and genetic linguistics. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
U.S. Census Bureau
(2016) Quick Facts: U.S. Population. Retrieved from [URL]
Varra, R.
(2007) Age of arrival, English skills, and regional Latin American origin as predictors of borrowing behavior in the Spanish of New York. XXI Congreso sobre el español en EEUU, Marzo 15–18 (2007), Arlington, VA. George Mason University..Google Scholar
(2018) Lexical borrowing and deborrowing in Spanish in New York City. New York, NY: Routledge.DOI logoGoogle Scholar
in press). Conversational recasting in New York City: Making global processes local. In A. Lynch Ed. Spanish in the Global City New York, NY Routledge
Wardhaugh, R.
(2000) An introduction to sociolinguistics (3rd ed.). Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
Winford, D.
(2003) An introduction to contact linguistics. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.Google Scholar
Zentella, A. C.
(1997) Growing up bilingual: Puerto Rican children in New York. Oxford, England: Blackwell Publishers.Google Scholar
(2016) Spanglish: Language politics versus el habla del pueblo. In R. E. Guzzardo Tomargo, C. M. Mazzak, & M. C. Parafita Cuoto (Eds.), Spanish-English codeswitching in the Caribbean and the U.S. (pp. 11–35). Amsterdam, The Netherlands: John Benjamins.DOI logoGoogle Scholar

Other sources consulted

Encyclopedia Britannica Online
. Percival Lowell: American Astronomer. Retrieved from [URL]. Last accessed September (2017).
Ethnologue: Languages of the World website
. Retrieved from [URL]. Last accessed November 2017.
Summer Institute of Linguistics International website
. Retrieved from [URL]. Last accessed November 2017.