Mock Spanish

This paper scrutinizes the path of the semantic extension of the originally neutral Spanish term macho ‘male animal’ to the pejorative ‘animal-like man’. Semantic pejoration belongs to one of the techniques that Hill (1995b) identifies when describing Mock Spanish, a type of racist discourse used by monolingual English speakers when using single Spanish words. Prototypically, the author of the semantic change from a positive or neutral to a negative connotation of a Spanish term is the monolingual speaker of American English. This seems not to be the case with respect to macho. In the same theoretical vein as Mock Spanish, many voices attribute the semantic pejoration of macho to the US-English discourse. The objective of this paper is to identify  the origin of this pejoration. Methodologically, this is conducted by means of a lexical search of the oldest pejorated macho items in Spanish, and the semantic content of the first macho borrowings in English. For this purpose, I consult...

When a new object or activity or idea enters in a culture, the word or words which express it may be borrowed. The most basic function of a loanword is communicating the new object or idea. A culture may elect to use its own resources (as 'horsepower' for a steam locomotive engine) for the new item Hoffer, (2002). The present research aims at examining the English borrowed words into Urdu language. It begins with Introduction to the borrowing in general and English with reference to Urdu in particular. It also discusses various forms of borrowing. English language has been in contact with Urdu during the British colonization in India. This has resulted into borrowing so many lexicons into Urdu which must be studied linguistically. It is argued that borrowing has enhanced the communicative range of Urdu lexicons. This is the qualitative study in its nature. Loanwords have been categorized in different domains. Then, the historical background of Urdu and English language interaction until now, and the processes, reasons that are involved in the borrowing of loanwords in Urdu from English language has been discussed.

[Bilingual edition in Spanish and English. English version starts on page 138] This paper explores the tension between neoliberal linguistic ideologies that foreground the economic value of languages in the globalized economy and the raciolinguistic ideologies through which race and language are co-naturalized. We focus on the labor market in the US, analyzing the experiences of young Latinx professionals who, inspired by the ideology of the bilingual advantage, expect to profit from their language skills in the job market. Drawing on political economy and on semi-structured interviews and surveys to 23 young Latinxs, we analyze two concrete labor practices to illustrate the tension between (1) the conceptualization of language knowledge as a component of the “bundle of skills” that neoliberal workers are expected to possess (and employers supposed to compensate), and (2) the essentialization of the language skills of racialized and working-class subjects,which are taken-for-granted and dissociated from personal or academic merit (and, therefore, undeserved of economic compensation). In addition, we explore the relationship between the affective dimension of linguistic practices and the convergence of work and pleasure proposed by the neoliberal regime. The first example that we analyze is the corroboration of Spanish knowledge in job interviews, where linguistic abilities are commonly not seen as professional skills that require verification, but as identity attributes easily assessed by profiling the candidates. The second situation that we study is the recurrent practice of assigning Latinxs extra language work, a naturalized practice that is not opposed or questioned by bilingual workers.We conclude that if neoliberalism highlights the economic value of languages, racialized speakers do not profit from it as traditional racial hierarchies and linguistic authority remain unchallenged.

Past studies analyzing the English influence in Spanish-language press in the United States focused on major cities of large Hispanic populations, such as, Miami, New York or Los Angeles. In recent years, the Hispanic population in the Carolinas has been growing quickly and merits studies equivalent to those of the large cities to analyze the effects of the language contact between Spanish and English. This study analyzes the English influence on the Spanish of two Spanish-language presses available in Charleston, South Carolina. The study analyzed the English influence at different linguistic levels in the two different writing styles of articles and advertisements and the types of English influence at the different linguistic levels in these two writing styles. The data were collected from one edition of each of the presses. The results indicated that the English influence found in the Spanish-language press of Charleston, sc is comparable to the findings of past studies in larger...

Kinibanyak orang di Indonesia yang mencampurekspresibahasaInggrisdalam kata-kata merekabaikdalamberbicaraataupunmenulis. Gaya orang modern yang sudahterbiasaberbicaralebihdarisatubahasainimengakibatkan media jugamenyesuaikangayadalammenyajikanberita. DalamhalinibahasadicampurdalampenggunaannyaatauseringdisebutCampurKode (Code Mixing).Masyarakat Indonesia jugamenyerapbeberapa kata daribahasaasinguntukmemperkayakosa kata dalamBahasa Indonesia.Dalamstudiini, penelitianhanyamembatasipadaCampurKode, yang berartipenggunaanduaataulebihbahasadalamsatuucapan, dan kata serapan ( borrowing ), yang berartisejumlah kata yang dipinjamdariberbagaibahasa lain. TujuanpenelitianiniadalahuntukmenjelaskanperbedaanantaraCampurKodedan kata serapansertamenggolongkan kata tersebutdalamjenisnya. LandasanteoridaripenelitianinimengacupadabeberapateoriSosiolinguistikyaituteoridari Hoffmann tentangCampurKode, danteoridari Haugen tentang kata serapan.Adapunmetode yang penulisgunakanadalahMetodePadandanMetodeAgih...

This study aims at tracking the various semantic changes of Arabic loanwords in Turkish (ALTs). The loanword data of the study were collected from a number of dictionaries including Sapan’s (2005) dictionary and Webster's Turkish-English Thesaurus Dictionary. Six types of semantic change are found at work in ALTs, the most frequent of which is radical semantic shift which represents more than 64% of the total loanword data followed by the processes of narrowing (20%) and widening (8%). The other three types have marginal roles to play in the semantic change process. Radical shifts involve some interesting cases which are peculiar to Turkish and are pertaining to the phenomenon of semantic replacement. The linguistic and extralinguistic factors like lexical need, the diachronic factor, the speaker’s miscomprehension and ignorance upon loanword incorporation are among the factors that lead to and affect the direction of semantic change of ALTs. 

The present paper investigates the semantics of English loanwords in Arabic media language (AML). The loanword data are collected from a number of Arab Gulf states newspapers (AGSNs). They are analyzed semantically from the points of view of semantic change, semantic domains, and the phenomenon of synonymy resulting from lexical borrowing. The semantic analysis has revealed that AML borrowings from English occur in fifteen distinctive semantic domains. Domains that are related to terms of technical and scientific nature are found ranking much higher (9%-18%) than those domains containing nontechnical elements (1%-8%) with the computer and technology category (18%) is the most dominant domain. Almost all common mechanisms of semantic change (extension, restriction, amelioration, pejoration, and metaphorical extension) are found at work in the context of AML borrowings. The tendency of semantic change in the overwhelming majority of AML borrowings is towards restriction. Factors like need, semantic similarity, and factors of social and psychological considerations (e.g. prestige, taboo) seem to be the potent factors at interplay in semantic change. The first two, i.e. need and semantic similarity, are the most common reasons in most types of semantic change. The problem of synonymy lies in those loanwords that have "Arabic equivalents" in the language. The study claims that this phenomenon could be attributed to the two simultaneous processes of lexical borrowing and?ištiqa:q (the modern efforts of deriving equivalent neologisms).

The purpose of this research is to examine the types of loanwords used in Obama's inaugural speech. The loanword theory of Haugen (loanword, loan blend, and loan shift) and Yule's theory of word creation were adopted in this research. It used a qualitative approach to describe the before-after borrow pattern, the types of loanwords, and the process of word formation. The data indicates that sixteen words are part of loan blend; nine words are part of loan shift; and one word is a loanword. While based on word formation, it is revealed that the borrowing word formation process includes twenty-six words and the derivation word formation process involves sixteen words

The purpose of this research is to examine the types of loanwords used in Obama's inaugural speech. The loanword theory of Haugen (loanword, loan blend, and loan shift) and Yule's theory of word creation were adopted in this research. It used a qualitative approach to describe the before-after borrow pattern, the types of loanwords, and the process of word formation. The data indicates that sixteen words are part of loan blend; nine words are part of loan shift; and one word is a loanword. While based on word formation, it is revealed that the borrowing word formation process includes twenty-six words and the derivation word formation process involves sixteen words

Discussing how language is used in our society can play an important role in addressing the issue of how negative ideologies are perpetuated. Extensive research has shown that phenomena such as Spanglish and Code-Switching are very common among Hispanics in the United States, but while these uses of language are harmless for their community, Mock Spanish, as the name suggests, is not. [...]  It is undeniable that society has never stopped evolving and has become more and more aware of how language can convey racist and stereotypical ideas. In light of this, the aim of this paper is to further explore how, and if, Mock Spanish appears in different contexts, and to see whether or not it is still a recurrent phenomenon.

This paper scrutinizes the path of the semantic extension of the originally neutral Spanish term macho 'male animal' to the pejorative 'animal-like man'. Semantic pejoration belongs to one of the techniques that Hill (1995b) identifies when describing Mock Spanish, a type of racist discourse used by monolingual English speakers when using single Spanish words. Prototypically, the author of the semantic change from a positive or neutral to a negative connotation of a Spanish term is the monolingual speaker of American English. This seems not to be the case with respect to macho. In the same theoretical vein as Mock Spanish, many voices attribute the semantic pejoration of macho to the US-English discourse. The objective of this paper is to identify the origin of this pejoration. Methodologically, this is conducted by means of a lexical search of the oldest pejorated macho items in Spanish, and the semantic content of the first macho borrowings in English. For this purpose, I consulted different sources, like diachronic corpora, etymological dictionaries and specialized references on the macho concept for Spanish as well as English. My analysis leads me to conclude that the semantic shift of macho, at least in its written form, developed in both sides of the Mexican-American border at the beginning of the XX century.

No todos los muros se ven. Algunos se oyen. El pensamiento calcificado en palabras levanta muros simbólicos, edificados con la lengua a partir del impulso del miedo. Ante una supuesta necesidad irreal de defensa, la rigidez mental la disfraza de odio y construye barreras lingüísticas que la aíslen de lo “diferente”. Estos muros de lenguaje, o el lenguaje muro, construido a partir de metáforas que separan y quiebran, es un arma que el presidente de Estados Unidos, Donald Trump, sabe manejar.

Es bien sabido que lo que decimos no siempre es lo que queremos decir y que muy a menudo queremos ocultar la verdad detrás de unas palabras "inocentes". Pero las palabras y construcciones que utilizamos nunca son inocentes, al contrario, el modo de escogerlas, unir en construcciones y utilizar en contextos puede revelar las verdaderas intenciones del hablante.

Jane Hill’s work on Mock Spanish (e.g., Hill, 2008) provides illuminating explanation of the appropriation of Spanish by US English speakers. She describes how speakers appropriate lexical items like cerveza (beer) to construct a positive image of themselves (e.g., as easy-going) while simultaneously indexing negative stereotypes of Spanish speakers (e.g., as lazy). Furthermore, Hill posits that Mock Spanish is a form of covert, elite racism since most instances originate among middle-class Whites, who portray themselves as “not racist” (van Dijk, 1993).

However compelling, Hill’s research has involved collecting and analyzing examples that she incidentally encountered.  Due to the limitations of this method, she has called for other approaches to answer questions like how the frequency of Mock Spanish has changed over time (Hill, 1995). We attempt to answer this call by incorporating corpus linguistics into the study of mock language (Vessey, 2014).

Our study uses the 450 million word Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA), containing a stratified sample of texts representing different years and genres (Davies, 2010). Similar numbers of texts are taken from each year between 1990 and 2012 and from several contexts: television and radio, fiction, newspapers, magazines, and academic publications. COCA, therefore, provides an appropriate dataset to study Mock Spanish’s frequency in several domains of elite discourse and its changes over the past two decades.

In our presentation, we describe our methodology which combines computational and manual techniques to locate and examine Mock Spanish tokens. Our methods allow us to describe a larger, more comprehensive lexicon of available Mock Spanish tokens than previously reported. We also discuss the distribution of Mock Spanish across genres and over time, explaining tendencies and changes with reference to ideological conflicts in the US (e.g., over Latin American immigration). Finally, we discuss the limitations of a corpus-based investigation of Mock Spanish.

This paper deals with Modern English loan words, i.e. the loan words that entered English in the period from approximately 1500 to the present-day. Among them the most numerous are definitely Latin and French. The Latin language has been an inexhaustible source of borrowings since the early beginnings of English, while French became the most frequent source in the Middle English period. Thus, in the last five centuries both languages simply preserved their importance as greatest donors of loan words. Nevertheless, in its recent history English has borrowed from many other languages as well, such as Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, German, Dutch, Russian, Indian, Chinese, Australian, etc.