Mary Bucholtz | University of California, Santa Barbara
In the absence of complex and diverse Latinx characters in entertainment media, film and television representations of
Latinxs’ culture and language typically embody limiting and harmful stereotypes. However, the highly praised U.S.-based romantic
comedy-drama “Jane the Virgin” offers a very different representation. With believable characters and complex linguistic dynamics, the show
provides a positive and relatively realistic representation both of Latinxs across generations and of their linguistic repertoires as
documented in community studies of Latinx language. Through an analysis of the linguistic practices of Latinx characters in “Jane the
Virgin,” including patterns of intergenerational language shift, linguistic accommodation, and codeswitching, it is argued that the show
acknowledges and treats as unmarked the linguistic complexity of Latinx families and communities. At the same time, the show oversimplifies
this complexity in some ways, creating a representation that may be perceived as authentic despite its divergence from real-world Latinx
language use.
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Cited by (5)
Cited by 5 other publications
Parker, Grace A., Maia Botek & Diego Pascual y Cabo
2024. The Evolving Landscape of Spanish Language Representation in U.S. Media: From Overt to Covert Discrimination. Languages 9:6 ► pp. 220 ff.
Reyes García, Zazil & Claudia A. Evans-Zepeda
2023.
Intergenerational Mujerista Latinidad: a comparative media analysis of
One Day at a Time
and
Jane the Virgin
. Critical Studies in Media Communication 40:5 ► pp. 277 ff.
Ito, Rika
2022. Edutaining with indigeneity: Mediatizing Ainu bilingualism in the Japanese anime, Golden Kamuy. Language & Communication 87 ► pp. 29 ff.
Ribke, Nahuel
2022. Bilingual fiction series, genre conventions, and the economy of linguistic interaction in Israeli television. International Journal of Cultural Studies 25:6 ► pp. 673 ff.
Ribke, Nahuel
2023. Bilingualism and the Televisual Architecture of Linguistic (dis-) Encounters in the Israeli Television Show Arab Labor. Television & New Media 24:2 ► pp. 190 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.