Recovering the U.S. Hispanic linguistic heritage : sociohistorical approaches to Spanish in the United States

Recovering the U.S. Hispanic linguistic heritage : sociohistorical approaches to Spanish in the United States

Contrary to popular belief, the first European language spoken on American soil was not English, but Spanish. Explorer Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca and his shipmates landed on the Florida coast in 1513, almost 100 years before the British established a permanent settlement in Virginia.
In this fascinating exploration of the development of the Spanish language from a sociohistorical perspective in the territory that has become the United States, linguists and editors Balestra, Martínez, and Moyna draw attention to the long tradition of multilingualism in the United States in the hope of putting to rest the myth that the U.S. was ever a monolingual nation.
The book is divided into two parts: an extensive introduction and a collection of seven articles about various aspects of the sociohistorical development of Spanish. The in-depth introduction gives the reader a historical overview of the areas of the U.S. previously occupied by Spain and Mexico, from the arrival of the earliest settlers to the Mexican-American war and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. The introduction also reviews language policies during the colonial and Mexican periods as well as current linguistic approaches, census data, and sociolinguistic research. In addition to shedding light on the linguistic evolution of Spanish in the U.S., the seven papers included in the second section of this volume offer the reader a fascinating glimpse into historical ideologies and beliefs in the territory that has become the United States.
A truly multidisciplinary book that touches on a number of related fields, Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Linguistic Heritage will be a must-read for scholars of history, sociology, and linguistics and anyone interested in the evolution of the Spanish influence and language in the U.S.

  • Cover
  • Title page
  • Copyright page
  • Contents
  • Acknowledgments
  • Part I. Recovering the U.S. Hispanic Linguistic Heritage
    • 1. Introduction
    • 2. Historical background
      • 2.1. Early Settlers and Inhabitants
      • 2.2. Early Explorers and Conquerors
      • 2.3. The Central Route North: Northern Mexico and New Mexico
      • 2.4. The Eastern Borderlands: Florida, Texas, and Louisiana
      • 2.5. The Western Borderlands: Sinaloa, Sonora, and the Californias
      • 2.6. The Borderlands After Mexican Independence
      • 2.7. The Economy of the Borderlands
      • 2.8. Society During the Spanish-Mexican Period
      • 2.9. Daily Life
      • 2.10. TheU.S.-Mexico War and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo
      • 2.11. The Southwest After American Annexation
      • 2.12. Social Changes After Annexation
      • 2.13. Summary
    • 3. Language Policies
      • 3.1. Language Policies During the Colonial and Mexican Periods
      • 3.2. Language Policies in the U.S. Southwest
      • 3.3. New Mexico
      • 3.4. California
      • 3.5. Arizona
      • 3.6. Texas
    • 4. Methodology
    • 5. Language Maintenance and Language Shift
      • 5.1. Sociolinguistic Questionnaires
      • 5.2. Structural Factors
      • 5.3. Census Data
    • 6. Organization of the Volume
    • References
  • Part II. Analyzing the U.S. Hispanic Linguistic Heritage
    • Formas de tratamiento en correspondencia en español: California y Nuevo México, 1800-1900. Alejandra Balestra
      • 1. Introducción
      • 2. Metodología
      • 3. Revisión de bibliografía
      • 4. California y Nuevo México en el siglo XIX
      • 5. Análisis y discusión
        • 5.1. Usos de usted
        • 5.2. Uso de tuteo
      • 6. Conclusiones
      • Bibliografía
      • Apéndice: Cartas incluidas en los ejemplos
    • Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche: una mujer en la Inquisición en Nuevo México,una voz en la historia del español del Sudoeste de los. Magdalena Coll
      • 1. Doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche nos deja su defensa
      • 2. Los manuscritos de Doña Teresa como fuente para la lingüística histórica
        • 2.1. La lengua española en la época de doña Teresa
      • 3. Lejos de todo y de todos: Nuevo México en el siglo XVII
      • 4. Don Bernardo López de Mendizábal
      • 5. La Inquisición contra doña Teresa de Aguilera y Roche
        • 5.1. Los cargos
        • 5.2. El proceso
        • 5.3. Doña Teresa se defiende
      • 6. Análisis lingüístico de los manuscritos de Doña Teresa
      • 7. Desenlace del juicio
      • Fuente manuscrita
      • Referencias bibliográficas
    • Espinosa’s Diary Chronicling the 1716 Ramón Expedition into Texas: Notes on the Translations. Deb Cunningham
      • Bibliography
    • La expresión de la pasividad en California en el siglo XIX. Patricia Gubitosi
      • 1. Introducción
      • 2. Sobre la pasividad
      • 3. Metodología
      • 4. Análisis
        • 4.1. Análisis del discurso epistolar
        • 4.2. Análisis del discurso periodístico
      • 5. Conclusiones
      • Referencias
      • Fuentes documentales
    • Language Wars on the Texas Frontier. Glenn Martínez
      • Language and Power
      • Power and Peace in the South Texas Borderlands
      • Reproducing Linguicism in South Texas
      • Resisting Linguicism in South Texas
      • References
    • How the Californio Girls (and Boys) Lost Their Accents. María Irene Moyna ; Wendy Beckman
      • 1. Introduction
      • 2. Background
        • 2.1. California during the Nineteenth Century
        • 2.2. Californio families
          • 2.2.1. The Forsters
          • 2.2.2. The Stokes
          • 2.2.3. The Couts
          • 2.2.4. A Small World
      • 3. The Data
      • 4. Findings
        • 4.1. Patterns of language use
        • 4.2. Features of language contact
          • 4.2.1. Language mixing
          • 4.2.2. Metalinguistic references
          • 4.2.3. Convergence, attrition, and second language acquisition
      • 5. Conclusions
      • Document description
      • References
    • Dialect Death: The Case of Adaeseño Spanish in Northwest Louisiana. Comfort Pratt
      • 1. Establisment of the Adaeseño Community
      • 2. Closure of Los Adaes
      • 3. Present Situation
      • 4. Methodology
        • 4.1. Informants
        • 4.2. Procedure
        • 4.3. Analysis
      • 5. Characteristics of the Adaeseño Dialect
        • 5.1. Phonological Features
        • 5.2. Morphosyntactic Features
        • 5.3. Lexical Features
      • 6. The Death of Adaeseño
      • 7. The Future of Adaeseño
      • 8. Conclusion
      • Bibliography
  • Contributors

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