“Qué barbaridad, son latinos y deberían saber español primero”: Language ideology, agency, and heritage language insecurity across immigrant generations
Applied Linguistics & Society Virtual Lecture Series
Tuesday, March 16, 2021 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM EDT
Dr. Amelia Tseng (Assistant Professor in World Languages and Cultures, American University)
March 16, 6-7pm EST
The United States is a diverse and multilingual country. In this, heritage speakers are a numerous but misunderstood population: speakers with a sociocultural relationship to a language but often with varied, “non-native” competencies, as is common in later immigrant generations. The situation is complicated by the strong indexical relationship between language and identity, where “not speaking Spanish” (or another heritage language) often symbolically marks “authentic” ethnocultural group membership. In this talk I demonstrate how ideologies of language purity and proficiency can lead to the imposition of deficit sociolinguistic identities on later-generation Latinx within their home communities, creating linguistic insecurity and contributing to language avoidance. First, I show that positive community attitudes towards Spanish language maintenance nevertheless can contain deficit ideologies through their emphasis on “speaking well” (i.e. native-like language). Second, I articulate the tension between the language attitudes that heritage speakers face and their actual bilingualism. Finally, I contend that ideologies of individual agency put the onus on minority speakers as individuals, positioning their language learning as a question of individual choice rather than taking U.S. social hegemony's suppression of heritage languages into account. Findings add new understanding to communities' complex role in language transmission. I conclude by discussing the DC Latinx Language and Identity project.
Registration is required! Please click on the title of the talk to register through the link.
Contact Ellen J. Serafini (eserafi2@gmu.edu) with any questions.
