Bilingualism

How Slang Creates and Perpetuates Gendered Power Dynamics in Greek Life

Bilingualism, Sociolinguistics

Alexa Waldman, Teresa Humbert, Morgan Moseley, Luke Kim

Prior to joining greek life, I was exposed to the stereotype that sorority girls were mean and hierarchical whereas fraternity boys were friendly and laid back. I was told to be prepared for girls to make comments that impose their superiority to make me feel small. However, during rush, I found that I was addressed with respect in every conversation. The girls always made sure to use words like “affordable” instead of “cheap,” and constantly parroted that slang phrase “Panhel love,” which means that each sorority chapter has love and respect for the rest.

On the other hand, boys who had gone through fraternity recruitment expressed that they were not treated with respect and that the older members made sure to establish power imbalances. They would use words like “facey”, meaning that someone is good looking enough to be in the fraternity and “moldable”, meaning that someone has good traits but can become better if he joins the fraternity. They used these terms in front of the potential members to impose their authority.

In our project, we studied slang used by sorority and fraternity members in order to determine how patterned language usage has the power to create and perpetuate gendered power imbalances and interorganizational hierarchies.

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Introduction and Background

Greek Life, which dates back to the 18th century, is a significant part of campus communities all across America. While many individuals see Greek life as a way to gain friendships and connections, the portrayal of Greek life in media, such as film and on social platforms, has suggested power imbalances within the institution and has casted a negative light on the organizations. Many stereotypes portray sorority girls as snobby and clicky, and portray fraternity members as inclusive and laid back. Our group was interested in investigating if there is truth behind these narratives.

We addressed the gap in patterned slang use between sorority and fraternity members to determine how speech can point to and maintain power imbalances. We predicted that because members of each individual organization share common language patterning, slang could be used to reinforce group identities. Moreover, we predicted that differences in communication practices between fraternities and sororities (as seen through slang) reflect and reinforce underlying gender power imbalances.

When taking a closer look, we found that there are flaws in the stereotypes surrounding Greek Life. In fact, our preconceived notions that sorority girls are clicky and enforce power imbalances, and that fraternity members are more inclusive and have less of a hierarchical structure were not supported by our evidence. Instead, by analyzing speech patterning in these

institutions, we found that fraternity members use slang to create a hierarchical structure within their chapter, compete with other fraternities, and facilitate gender imbalances of power between sororities and fraternities. On the other hand, we found that sorority members tend to have a symmetrical power dynamic within their chapters and promote friendship and inclusion with the other sororities through their use of slang. Overall, our research challenges the stereotypes that surround Greek life, revealing the flaws in common narratives about the power dynamics within Greek Life communities

Methods

Our research was conducted in sorority and fraternity houses over the course of a month. Each person in our group sat down with members of Greek Life for interviews that lasted about 20-30 minutes each. The interviewer asked open-ended questions in order to allow the sorority and fraternity members to freely explain their experiences. In the interviews, we asked questions such as “can you describe the slang words used most in your chapter? How does slang suggest/ create power imbalances? What topics does your slang refer to the most?” Some questions differed for sorority and fraternity members as we wanted to understand how each institution perceived the other. We asked sorority members what slang they thought fraternity members use the most and what topics they believed this slang surrounded. We asked fraternity members the same questions about sorority members.

We also focused on understanding relationships within and between sororities as well as within and between fraternities. For this reason, we interviewed people from different grades, from different chapters, and with different positions of power. For example, we questioned the president of a fraternity along with a sophomore and a freshman. We similarly talked to members on the executive boards of different sororities, and interviewed seniors, juniors, sophomores, and freshmen in these same organizations. We interviewed people in different positions/ grades in two fraternities and three sororities.

Interviewing a diverse range of people within multiple chapters of both sororities and fraternities gave us a multifaceted picture of the contexts in which slang is used, how slang is used, why slang is used, and the effect of slang. This researching process specifically gave us insights into how slang has different purposes and effects when used by sororities and fraternities.

Results and Analysis

Our research demonstrates how sorority members harness slang to facilitate an environment of inclusion and harmony within and between sorority chapters. On the other hand, we found that fraternity members utilize slang to create power imbalances within chapters, between chapters, and between fraternities and sororities. Many fraternity brothers discussed that power imbalances within their organization were especially evident in the difference of social status between new members and brothers that had already been initiated into the chapter. For example, new members are called “pledges” in every fraternity. This slang word is

used to emphasize their inferiority to the rest of the boys in the chapter. In one chapter, new members are collectively called “the stinkys” to signify that they smell bad, a further example of how official members degrade their new members. 95% of the fraternity members we interviewed said that they had experienced being talked down to while they were going through the recruitment process.

Figure 1

On the other hand, many sorority members expressed how they did not feel the pressure of power imbalances during recruitment or within their chapter. For example, active members in the sorority Alpha Phi were calling the new members “Phisters” – a chapter-specific slang word for “sisters” — from the moment that they got their bid. Furthermore, even though new members are typically called “pledges,” which has connotations of inferiority, sororities are in the habit of abbreviating “pledge class” to “PC” in order to rid the slang of its power to demean new members. While fraternity brothers relinquish the title of “pledge” the moment they are initiated as members, sorority members continue to refer to their “PC” in terms of the community and cohesiveness of each group that joined the sorority at the same time. In interviewing sorority sisters, we found that only 2% of members felt that they were talked down to during recruitment.

Figure 2

Through our interviewing process, we also encountered slang that perpetuated gendered power dynamics between sororities and fraternities. Our data suggested that this type of slang is used mainly by fraternity men towards or about sorority members. For example, fraternity men use derogatory slang words such as “ran through ” and “been around” to describe women that they want to demean for being (what they consider to be) overly sexually active. Sorority women expressed that when fraternity men act in the same way, it is considered normal and there are no slang words used to discuss them in a negative light. This example demonstrates how slang is used to perpetuate power imbalances that are prevalent throughout the country within gender-specific institutions.

Discussion and Conclusions

Overall, our research suggests that sororities have a more egalitarian and encouraging culture whereas fraternities have a clear hierarchical structure and competitive environment. These findings add to our understanding of gendered power dynamics in social organizations. The hierarchical nature of fraternity culture is reflected in the slang they use, which highlights the competitive environment and the importance of rank and authority.

Our research indicates that these organizations’ internal cultures are significantly shaped by their communication patterns as members of fraternities and sororities speak in ways that both reflect and perpetuate their respective power structures. Fraternity men use slang to enforce power imbalances which produces a feedback loop: the more slang is used to create imbalances, the more imbalances exist, and thus the more this slang is used. On the other hand, sorority women utilize slang to establish a cohesive and inclusive environment, and this environment breeds further use of unifying speech patterning. Additionally, our study emphasizes how crucial it is to evaluate media representations of social groupings and prejudices as our research contradicts a widely held presentation of these organizations.

Our research is important in bringing awareness to power imbalances and injustices that go unnoticed or are simply accepted by fraternity members. Our findings may incite fraternity members to evaluate their slang usage and strive to use language that facilitates a more equal, safe, and positive environment in the future. One possible solution is the implementation of workshops and training sessions focused on inclusive and respectful communication within Greek organizations. Educating members about the impact of language can foster a more supportive atmosphere, reducing hierarchical behaviors in fraternities and enhancing the positive dynamics in sororities.

References

Appalachian State University. (2024). Fraternity and sorority life. History of Fraternities/Sororities. https://fsl.appstate.edu/history-of-greek-life

Handler, L. (1995). In the Fraternal Sisterhood: Sororities as Gender Strategy. Gender and Society, 9(2), 236–255. http://www.jstor.org/stable/189873

Izmaylova, G. A., Zamaletdinova, G. R., & Zholshayeva, M. S. (2017). Linguistic and social features of slang. International Journal of Scientific Study, 5(6), 75-78. 10.17354/ijssSept/2017/016

McLemore, C. A. (1991). The pragmatic interpretation of English intonation: Sorority speech (Order No. 9128305). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses A&I; ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global. (303946119).https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/pragmatic-interpretation-en glish-intonation/docview/303946119/se-2?accountid=14512

Morgan, Emma, “Losing Yourself: Cults, Greeks, and Sociological Theories of Self and Identity” (2021). Honors Program Theses. 138. https://scholarship.rollins.edu/honors/138

Rowan University. (2024). “Benefits.” Benefits of Greek Life. https://sites.rowan.edu/oslp/greekaffairs/benefits/

Scott, John Finley. (1965). “The American College Sorority: Its Role in Class and Ethnic Endogamy.” American Sociological Review, vol. 30, no. 4, pp. 514–27. JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/2091341

Thompson, Bailey Airs. (2017). “#Sorority girl: The Sorority Socialization Process through the Construction and Maintenance of the Individual and Chapter Sorority Identity.” DSpace Repository, 1-15. ttu-ir.tdl.org/items/742e3cc2-4d41-4b94-9efe-018b9bf98f54.

The Sexist Side of Hollywood Interviews

Bilingualism, Sociolinguistics

Emily Chinn, Kai Wang, Soleil Danico, and Takuma Sato

In order for a movie to become a blockbuster, it needs to be properly promoted. Press tours are some of the most common tactics for garnering attention for an upcoming film and give the actors the platform to showcase their passion and personality. Still, the differentiation of questions and communication between actors and actresses is undoubtedly prevalent.  The present article focuses on identifying the distinct patterns of gendered communication evident in celebrity press tour interviews. By viewing and analyzing the press tour interviews of actresses, we found a common pattern of questions that focus on physical appearance, project traditional gender roles, or are uncomfortable and unnecessarily sexual. Our results led us to the conclusion that there is a distinct gendered difference in the word choice and questions of actresses and actors, prompting the urge for more equitable questions and proper training in the entertainment industry.

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Introduction

The entertainment world has the unique ability to draw in an audience and influence populations across the world. Aspects of what is portrayed on the screen often come to fruition in the real world. Stereotypes and generalizations have not only been created, but perpetuated by content in cinema.

One of the most caricatured groups in film throughout the years has been women. Women have been sexualized or deemed as unimportant for years through the history of filmmaking. Whether it be female characters having no motives in movies that do not relate to men, or simply being figures to gawk at, women have been objectified in films for years creating a societal image of women being weak and simple-minded. With film’s unparalleled ability to create a social impact, “vast numbers of movie-goers are receiving specific cultural messages, and the perpetuations of these themes regarding gender roles, which are depicted across genres in the top grossing films, [and] are reaching a huge audience” (Murphy, 2015).

Unfortunately, in film media today, actresses are still subjected to sexist and dehumanizing questions in press tour interviews. Actresses are much more likely to receive questions that focus on physical appearance, that project traditional gender roles, or are uncomfortable due to their promiscuity.

In order to dive deeper into this pervasive issue in Hollywood and the greater media, we performed an analysis of the word choice utilized in press tour interviews to identify the designs used to form these questions, ultimately answering: What are the distinct patterns of gendered communication evident in celebrity interviews?

Background

The manner in which celebrities are interviewed can significantly impact the outcome of the conversation. This is particularly evident in interviews with renowned actresses, where the gender of the interviewer can influence the nature of the questions asked. Studies have shown that female celebrities are often asked more personal questions, which can make them feel uncomfortable. This is not just a minor issue but a prevalent phenomenon that can affect how people perceive women in general.

A study by Benney et. al titled “Age and Sex in the Interview”, indicates that female interviewees are more forthcoming and at ease when the interviewer is also female. This illustrates the impact of the gender of the interviewer on the course of the conversation (1956). Fu et. al, observed a phenomenon in sports interviews where female athletes are often asked about their personal lives instead of their athletic achievements, in contrast to male athletes (2016). This reflects a similar issue in Hollywood that helped to inspire our initial research study.

Robin Lakoff studies gender communication and the qualities of women’s speech. Her research into the phrases and words that women utilize to handle uncomfortable questions helped us recognize patterns in actresses’ responses (1973).

By analyzing the manner in which interviewers pose questions and actresses respond, we aim to gain insight into the unspoken rules and expectations that influence how we discuss men and women in the media.

Methods

To narrow our investigation and minimize the impact of external factors, we specifically chose to draw our data from press tour interviews after the respective actress/actor released a new project. We chose press tour interviews with the expectation that the questions would be about the current project, so any unrelated questions would help support our hypotheses. If we had chosen a book tour or general interview, most questions would be fair game and would not help us to analyze the gender and sexist interview questions/comments towards these actresses. 

Additionally, we maintained the same race for all of the interviewees and focused on white actresses and actors.

Overall, we collected 15 different data samples. We gathered our clips from Good Morning America, Extra TV, and individual/non-affiliated interview Youtube channels. In order to analyze and organize the distinct patterns of gender communication, we created a codebook that categorizes the blatant sexism and misogyny witnessed in these interviews into three main categories. We transcribed all of the interviews and focused specifically on word choice within the interview question, and the interviewee’s response.

  1. The first category focuses on physical appearance. This includes questions regarding diets, workouts, costumes, and beauty routines. These questions actively tie an actress’s value and importance to how she is physically perceived, ignoring her actual work.
  2. The second category focuses on protecting traditional gender roles. These questions are characterized by word choice regarding children, families, balance, being a mother, and more. Many times we see women asked if they feel guilty leaving their children at home and completely disregard who they are as an actress and person separate from their life as a mother. Additionally, these questions are rarely ever directed at their male counterparts.
  3. The third category focuses on uncomfortable sexual comments which are inappropriate and unrelated to the professional capabilities or the context of the work. These include common patterns of commenting on their sexual activity, exploiting their role in explicit scenes or films, and making advances.

We organized all of our data in a Google Spreadsheet and color-coded by the type of question. Blue is correlated with questions about physical appearance, Green is correlated with questions focused on projecting traditional gender roles, and Yellow is correlated with uncomfortable sexual comments.

Figure 1 displays our data collection spreadsheet color-coded based on our Codebook.

With prior knowledge of the gender dynamics in Hollywood, we hypothesize that sexist and gendered communication patterns are still extremely prevalent in press tour celebrity interviews. We also hypothesize that interviewers will spend more time focused on the three codebook categories than the actual content of the movie.

Data and Results

After establishing our three different categories of word choice, we analyzed the 15 samples and found that the most common type of questions asked were uncomfortable and sexual.

Figure 2: Pie Chart represents the percentage of each question asked, according to our Codebook.

In order to get a better sense of how we sorted each sample, an example of each will be given.

  1. Anne Hathaway on “One Day” Press Tour (Physical Appearance) Anne Hathaway gets offended during interview – YouTube

Video 1A displays Anne Hathway’s “One Day” Press Tour Interview

  1. Keira Knightley Press Interview After Winning an Award (Traditional Gender Roles)Keira Knightley wins Hollywood Film Award for ‘The Imitation Game’

Video 1B displays Keira Knightley’s “The Imitation Game” Press Tour Interview

  1. Sandra Bullock on “The Proposal” Press Tour (Uncomfortable Sexual Comments)Sandra Bullock on Today Show – YouTube

Video 1C displays Sandra Bullock’s “The Proposal” Press Tour Interview

Both Anne Hathway and Sandra Bullock respond with polite humor as a way to minimize the impact of the situation and move on from the question, as seen in Lakoff’s research. 

Discussion and Conclusions

As our results show, the gendered communication and word choice for women in the film industry is negatively displayed through press interviews and tours. We found that actresses are more likely to be asked questions that are unrelated to the project that they are working on, with interviewers opting to spend more time asking personal questions rather than work related ones. This not only undermines the work that actresses put into their projects, but also projects an standard and ideal that impacts how women are perceived outside of the movies.

It is important to recognize that we studied gendered communication through a binary of male and female actresses, yet we recognize that gender is not binary and further research can be done into the word choice in interview questions for non-binary, transgender, and other actors/actresses. Additionally, if the project were to be replicated, there are other limitations that could be addressed to create more accurate results. First, we did not choose a specific time period. While we limited our data to focus on press tour interviews, our interviews spanned the past 24 years and did not account for changes in the gender dynamics of Hollywood, the development of the #MeToo movement, and more. If replicated, we would narrow our scope to look at a specific celebrity event, award show, or 2-3 year span. As a result of our expansive time frame, there were many different individuals and media channels that conducted these interviews.

References

BoonieHu. “Sandra Bullock on Today Show.” YouTube, 21 Dec. 2009, youtu.be/k8Rk22-VAvs.

Behm-Morawitz, Elizabeth, and Dana E. Mastro. “Mean Girls? The Influence of Gender Portrayals in Teen Movies on Emerging Adults’ Gender-Based Attitudes and Beliefs.” Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, vol. 85, no. 1, Mar. 2008, pp. 131–146, https://doi.org/10.1177/107769900808500109.

Benney, Mark, et al. “Age and Sex in the Interview.” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 62, no. 2, Sept. 1956, pp. 143–152, https://doi.org/10.1086/221954.

Chen, Yan. “Unveiling the Veil of the Damsel in Distress in Movies: The Impact of Gender Stereotypes on Female Characters in a Patriarchal Society.” Arts Culture and Language, vol. 1, no. 4, 3 Jan. 2024, https://doi.org/10.61173/m8eryy83.

Chris Van Vliet. “Anne Hathaway Gets Offended during Interview.” YouTube, 9 Aug. 2011, www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3-5e0OOLKQ.

Collins, Rebecca L. “Content Analysis of Gender Roles in Media: Where Are We Now and Where Should We Go?” Sex Roles, vol. 64, no. 3-4, 22 Jan. 2011, pp. 290–298, link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-010-9929-5.

Digital Spy. “The Avengers UK Press Conference in Full.” YouTube, 20 Apr. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBbSNnGmPfw.

digitalmediafan. “At 30 Years Old This Is the the Infamous Helen Mirren Interview from 1975 with Sir Michaël Parkinson.” YouTube, 19 Aug. 2023, youtu.be/Mndxg3cN1qQ?si=Fs8FoakwdtEPaEDW.

extratv. ““The Avengers” Interviews: Scarlet Johansson and Jeremy Renner.” YouTube, 3 May 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=DHxzxgwJTFc&t=19s.

Fu, Liye, et al. “Tie-Breaker: Using Language Models to Quantify Gender Bias in Sports Journalism.” ArXiv (Cornell University), 13 July 2016, https://doi.org/10.48550/arxiv.1607.03895.

GoldDerby / Gold Derby. “Keira Knightley Wins Hollywood Film Award for “the Imitation Game.”” YouTube, 14 Nov. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpcaMKmalA.

Han Solo. “Watch Amy Schumer Shut down Interviewer after “Skank” Question.” YouTube, 9 Aug. 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=MsPWXnQmPtU.

Heldman, Caroline, et al. “‘Hot, black leather, whip.’” Sexualization, Media, & Society, vol. 2, no. 2, 25 Apr. 2016, p. 237462381562778, https://doi.org/10.1177/2374623815627789.

Lakoff, Robin. “Language and Woman’s Place.” Language in Society, vol. 2, no. 1, 1973, pp. 45–80, web.stanford.edu/class/linguist156/Lakoff_1973.pdf, https://doi.org/10.1017/s0047404500000051.

MsMojo. “Top 20 Celebs Who Shut down Sexist Interview Questions.” YouTube, 25 Oct. 2020, www.youtube.com/watch?v=aw3t9C_vnuI%E3%80%80.

Murphy, Jocelyn. “The Role of Women in Film: Supporting the Men — an Analysis of How Culture Influences the Changing Discourse on Gender Representations in Film.” Journalism Undergraduate Honors Theses, 1 May 2015, scholarworks.uark.edu/jouruht/2.

shaniqua davidson. “OITNB’s Natasha Lyonne Drags a Sexist Reporter.” YouTube, 19 June 2015, www.youtube.com/watch?v=r37lgeZb2io.

Speer, Susan A. “Sexist Talk: Gender Categories, Participants’ Orientations and Irony.” Journal of Sociolinguistics, vol. 6, no. 3, Aug. 2002, pp. 347–377, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9481.00192.

SWAY’S UNIVERSE. “Lauren Conrad Answers Mystery Sack Question about Her “Favorite Position” on #SwayInTheMorning.” YouTube, 18 Oct. 2012, www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuzdusqpX6Q.

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To Hear or Not To Hear: Identifying Speaker Ethnicity By Auditory Clips

Bilingualism, Sociolinguistics

Caroline Breckling

This study investigates to what extent individuals are able to identify a person’s ethnicity based solely on the sound of their voice. Expanding on previous research demonstrating humans’ relative accuracy in recognizing ethnicities by voice, this investigation aims to explore whether a listener’s own ethnicity or familiarity with other ethnicities affects their accuracy in this identification. My survey, conducted with 20 participants from diverse backgrounds, asked individuals to identify the ethnicity of speakers in six different audio clips. Results indicated that participants could identify the speaker’s ethnicity with an overall accuracy of 43.3%, significantly higher than random chance, and a majority of the time, this level of accuracy went up when the guesser was from the same ethnicity group as the speaker featured in the sound bite. However, familiarity with an ethnic group did not reliably improve rates of accurate identification. These findings reflect humans’ existing ability to recognize in-group members through minimal auditory information, reflecting the lingering effects of socialization for survival in human history.

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Introduction

For my inquiry, I was curious about to what degree humans are able to identify another person’s ethnicity by only hearing the sound of their voice. Some pre-existing research reflected that people were relatively proficient in recognizing ethnicity by voice; in one study, 85.7% of participants could correctly identify Black voices, 75.5% could correctly identify white voices, and 46.9% could identify Asian voices (Kushins, 2014). Another study that asked subjects to identify race from acoustic cues found that listeners could identify a speaker’s race at a rate of 60% correctness, which displayed less assured, yet still affirmative findings than Kushins’ study (Walton et. al., 1994). On a larger scale level, this research is important because it reflects the extent of the evolved and socialized abilities humans possess to identify in-group members, a necessary skill to build cultural comradery. Further studies about this trait even demonstrate that even on a neurological level, we categorize in-groups that we belong to in a different part of our brains than those we consider “other” and even react differently to their behavior, more easily forging bonds with our in-group members (Molenberghs, 2013).

These findings encouraged me to investigate how adept we are at making such connections. Do we need to look at someone or converse with someone in order to classify and welcome them into our ingroup? Or has our radar for people similar to us become so sensitive that we can simply recognize people that we consider our own by the sound of a clue as minimal as their voice? With this promising previous research in mind, I sought to take this research a step further by identifying if a participant’s own was related to their proficiency in correctly identifying the ethnicity of speakers. I hypothesized that listeners that were of a speaker’s ethnicity, or more familiar with a speaker’s ethnicity, would correctly identify the speaker’s ethnicity more often than listeners that were of a different ethnicity.

Methods

In order to investigate the extent to which individuals can accurately determine a person’s ethnic group simply by listening to their voice, I created a Google Form survey to collect data about my peers’ ability to do just this.

The notion behind my investigation requires ethnically diverse data, so I intentionally sought out participants from an array of ethnic backgrounds. Ultimately, my dataset consisted of 20 responses from participants of two genders identifying themselves as a member of one of five different ethnic groups: Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Middle Eastern, and White or Caucasian. There were at least two participants from each of the aforementioned ethnic groups. Unfortunately, no participants identified as American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander, which was the sixth ethnic group featured in the study.

The survey began by asking participants to fill out a few questions about their demographic information, then asked participants to select which of these six aforementioned ethnic groups they felt most familiar with, both personally and through media. After this, participants listened to a set of six sound bites and then were asked to select which of the six ethnic groups (American Indian, Alaska Native, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander, Asian, Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, Middle Eastern, and White or Caucasian) they believed each speaker from the sound bite belonged to. See below for a visual representation of how this type of question appeared:

Figure 1: Sample survey sound bite and corresponding question

These sound bites were taken from videos on the Youtube channel called Jubilee. Although some of the sound bites featured two people speaking, data was only inspected for one of the two voices, although participants guessed the ethnicity of all speakers whose voices they heard. Each of the sound bites that the data focused on featured a speaker from a different ethnic group, although participants did not know this. You can listen to these sound bites, and even quiz yourself, here:

After collecting this data, I analyzed these findings in the following three ways:

  1. I inspected the overall responses for each sound bite to determine how accurately participants, regardless of ethnicity, were able to predict someone’s ethnicity by hearing only their voice.
  2. I inspected and compared the responses for each sound bite with the results broken down by ethnicity to determine whether or not people are more likely to predict a speaker’s ethnicity if they themselves belong to that same ethnicity.
  3. I inspected and compared the responses for each sound bite with the results broken down by participants who considered themselves familiar with a given ethnicity. For instance, inspecting the responses for the sound bite featuring an Asian speaker from all participants who selected that they were familiar with Asian culture.

Results

Before diving into the results, I feel it appropriate to make a few disclosures about the data that was collected throughout this study. First, the voices depicted in the sound bites in the study by no means represent the way that all people of their ethnicity speak. Additionally, because the study only contained twenty participants, the sample size is not large enough for the data to be truly representative of the general population, especially because there were only a couple of people in some of the ethnicity groups, such as the Hispanic or Latino group, with two. Here is a demographic breakdown of the participants by gender and by ethnicity:


Figure 2: Participant demographic information (n=20))

 

Analysis #1: Overall Accuracy

Here, my findings for my first angle of analysis demonstrate that on average, 43.3% of participants can accurately identify a speaker’s race blindly. Participants guessed the Asian and White speakers the most accurately (85%), and the Middle Eastern speaker the least accurately (5%). In each graph, the green slice indicates correct responses. Further breakdowns for each sound bite are below:


Figure 3: Breakdown of all participant guesses for each sound bite

 

Analysis #2: Accuracy by Ethnicity
The findings for my second angle of analysis suggest that people may not necessarily have an overwhelmingly successful rate of identifying ethnicity purely from voice, but people who share an ethnicity with the voice they are hearing are more likely to identify ethnicity correctly. These results reflected that for 3 out of 5 surveyed ethnic groups, Hispanic or Latino, Asian, and Black or African-American, their average rate of successfully identifying the speaker’s voice was higher than the average rate across all ethnic groups. Interestingly, in the case of soundbite number three, which featured the Black speaker, the Hispanic and Latino group actually had a higher accuracy rate (100%) over the Black or African-American group (66.7%), although the group of Black participants still were more accurate than the overall average across all ethnicities. In the case of sound bite #4, featuring the Middle Eastern speaker, the data reflects that only one participant out of all, a Hispanic participant, correctly guessed the ethnicity of this speaker. In the case of sound bite #5, featuring the white speaker, the group of white participants actually scored lowest of the five ethnicities.

Figure 4: The graphs of each sound bite, broken down by participant ethnicity. A green highlight of the label of ethnicity means the percent correct for that ethnicity group is higher than the average percent correct across all responses, and a red highlight means the percent correct is lower than the average percent correct.

 

Analysis #3: Accuracy by Participants Familiar with Featured Ethnicity
For three of the six ethnicities, Native, Asian, and Hispanic or Latino, those who identified themselves as familiar with a given ethnicity averaged a higher success rate than the average success rate for all participants. Additionally, please note that for the Native graph, there was only one respondent who indicated that they were familiar with that ethnicity.

Figure 5: Each graph displays responses of participants who identified themselves as being familiar with the given ethnicity featured in its respective sound bite. A green highlight represents the percent correct being higher than the average percent correct, and a red highlight represents the percent correct being lower than the average percent correct.

Discussion

Ultimately, the findings from my research provides evidence for humans’ ability to recognize a person’s ethnicity using their voice alone. Given that there were six ethnicities to choose from, we can assume that chance would give us a 1 in 6, or roughly 17% rate of predicting the ethnicity of a given voice correctly at random, however participants correctly identified the voice of a given speaker at a rate higher than 17% on four out of six occasions, according to the first angle of my analysis.

The second set of results reveal that 60% of groups of participants by ethnicity correctly identified voices of fellow members of their in group at a more successful rate then participants not part of their ethnic group. This finding reflects that people are more adept at recognizing a speech style that they are biologically, and likely socially, related to.
The third set of results reveal that 50% of the time people who classified themselves as being familiar with a particular identity were more accurate at identifying that particular identity over other identities that they were not familiar with. Although the first two results were in line with my hypothesis, this result is not, as I had hypothesized that being closer to an ethnicity would make a person more adept at recognizing its members. This shortcoming may either reflect that being familiar with another identity does not necessarily mean that you are better at distinguishing it, as being biologically related does, or it may reflect that people simply are not reliable judges of how familiar they are with a certain ethnic group.
Together, these findings reflect that there exist evolved mechanisms that help humans identify demographic information, such as ethnicity, about a new person using very minimal stimuli, such as just their voice. This result speaks to the fact that our ancestors’ survival relied heavily on knowing who to trust and associate with, and remnants of this trait still live within us today. Although the third angle of analysis was inconclusive, the first two angles of analysis, all participant data together versus participant data sorted by ethnic group, reveals an evident difference in in-group members recognizing fellow in-group members easier than a non in-group member.

 

References

Kushins, E.R. (2014). Sounding Like Your Race in the Employment Process: An Experiment on Speaker Voice, Race Identification, and Stereotyping. Race Soc Probl 6, 237–248.

Molenberghs, P. (2013). The neuroscience of in-group bias. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 37(8),1530-1536.

Walton, J. H., & Orlikoff, R. F. (1994). Speaker race identification from acoustic cues in the vocal signal. Journal of Speech & Hearing Research, 37(4), 738–745.

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Friendships For the Mono- and Bi-Lingual College Student: Does The Language You Speak Make A Difference in How You Make Friends?

Bilingualism

In the course of our research, we endeavored to examine the difference in the social life of UCLA college students, their capacity to make friends, and satisfy their need for social support with fellow students based on their status as a monolingual or bilingual speaker of English. Drawing on support from previous research dealing with different student populations, we concluded that the way bilingual students are treated and form communities is different from the way monolinguals do, whether because of “othering” by speakers who did not understand their language or culture or because they sought out connections with those who shared their ethnic or linguistic ties. It was almost universal in our interviews where bilingual speakers had a bias towards others who spoke their non-English language, and many of the monolinguals admitted to preferring the company of those who shared their language and culture. Not every speaker who our team interviewed had an exactly identical experience, however- none of our bilingual speakers derived from the same culture or spoke the same language- and there were a few interesting perspectives and outliers.

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Introduction

In the course of their education, every single college student is faced with the point where they realize that they are now, effectively, adults and they are now- potentially for the first time- on their own. Many freshmen entering into university are inbound to a new city, a new county, new state, or even an entirely new country. The locale, culture, and people are all different than where they are originally from.

This gap in culture (and sometimes even language) and the responsibilities endowed by college life can make it difficult to make friends in a new place– but it is also extremely pivotal for mental and social well being to make social connections, given the loneliness of being far from home and isolation from the people one knows.

Researching into how students- particularly bilingual students- construct their new friendships is invaluable for anyone incoming to university. Using UCLA students as a representative example, we can explore some of the insights of students navigating their new social landscape. Most specifically, we want to see how- and if- monolinguals and bilinguals differ when it comes to trying to form friendships, and why.

Methods

We began our research on how bilinguals and monolinguals in college differ in making friends and their differing level of social satisfaction in the college environment by consulting various published literature on the subject, but intended to do our own interviews and surveys to see if anecdotal evidence matched the broader scientific findings. Across many different papers- from bilingual college students of Chinese or Latinx descent all the way to the bias of young monolinguals from 4 to 6 years of age- we found a fairly consistent trend: bilinguals liked grouping with other bilinguals (specifically ones of their own culture and language) and monolinguals tended a slight cognitive bias (conscious or otherwise) towards other grouping with monolinguals.

When we had seen the literature’s assessment of college friendships by bilinguals, we formed our hypothesis about the difference: that bilinguals tended to find it easier to make friends with bilinguals from their culture and that monolinguals tended either to “not care” or stick with monolinguals. We also sought out whether being bilingual was particularly helpful in making social connections compared to monolinguals, and other potential social benefits of bilingualism in a predominantly English-controlled American college environment. With our research question and secondary and tertiary objectives in mind, we put our theories and the broader literature to the test through qualitative and quantitative surveys and interviews.

Results

The results of the interviews with bilinguals were quite illustrative in relation to social connections through their first language. Using direct quotes from interviews, many of the answers were quite straightforward:

INTERVIEW 1 – BILINGUAL

I: Did you find it easier to connect and meet people who spoke the same language as you?

J: Yes, most definitely. Uhm, I really liked connecting with people who also spoke Vietnamese because there were a lot of like, you know, Vietnamese language jokes that only Vietnamese people would get.

INTERVIEW 2 – BILINGUAL

I: Have you found it easier to connect with people who speak the same language as you?

S: […] Definitely, yeah. It’s much easier. I mean, it really depends on the person. I wouldn’t say, “Oh, I’m going to go and make friends with whoever speaks Farsi”, because some people, it depends on how approachable they are or if I vibe with them. But in terms of, uh, having one thing to connect. Yes, I would say it’s much easier for me to connect to someone who speaks the same language versus non-Farsi.

INTERVIEW 3 – BILINGUAL

I: Do you find it easier to connect with people who speak the same language(s) as you?

E: Definitely, I feel like it’s easier if I can also speak your language and understand what I’m saying.

Very consistently across bilingual speakers that we interviewed, sharing a language and culture was essential for forming social ties. They expressed feeling at ease with people who spoke their own language, or how being among a bilingual speaker enhanced their experience more than it would be otherwise.

INTERVIEW 1 – MONOLINGUAL

I: Do you think language or culture has any bearing on who you choose to interact with in your day to day life?

A: Uhm, I definitely would say so… it’s easier for me to talk to or be around someone who has the same language and culture as me.

INTERVIEW 2 – MONOLINGUAL

I: Do you think language or culture has any bearing on who you choose to interact with in your day to day life?

J: […] It kinda sounds like an asshole thing to say– but I think that I’m accepting of a lot of different cultures and stuff– I think there are some subconscious elements, but I wouldn’t know what they were, there are probably some groups I don’t interact with just off of, I don’t know, vibes…

Monolinguals, in their parallel questions to the bilingual speakers, hedged a little when answering but definitely seemed to be likewise confident that they preferred to stay within their own clade of language and culture.

When it came to the respective groups, bilinguals occasionally went out of their way to specifically connect with their own cultures (the interviewee of Interview 1 professed to specifically looking for Southeast Asian clubs on campus in order to connect with others and make friends) but monolinguals had no such compunctions (no one we interviewed was, for instance, attending an “Born American Student” or “Monolingual English” club, nor did such a thing exist). When it came to making friendships, typically they went for shared hobbies unrelated to culture (in one case, gaming clubs).

This is not a zero sum game, however– in many cases, bilinguals at UCLA had the added benefit of being able to draw on their extra language in addition to monolingual strategies, meaning their opportunities for friendships were more diverse than the monolingual opportunities. Though the potential for exclusion from these more monolingual-oriented experiences is possible, rejection by monolingual speakers for language or culture was rare, if existent at all.

Many of the monolinguals we interviewed wished they had the opportunity to learn other languages and be fluent in them, viewing their English exclusion as a missed opportunity; only one subject of interview wanted to remain a monolingual, though when pressed admitted he would like to learn American Sign Language (and advocated that the rest of the US did, as well) and wasn’t sure if that counted as being multilingual. Broadly speaking in our interviews, bilinguals were happy to provide a social bridge for monolingual to monolingual interactions and delighted to get the chance to share their culture or language with others. No one regretted being bilingual or thought it made their social opportunities at UCLA worse.

Conclusion

A primary finding that stood out in our research was the absence of in-group/out-group biases within both groups. Instead, we found that linguistic diversity among the population created opportunities for cultural exchange and that in-group preferences did not completely discourage students from reaching out to other cultures. Our results revealed that bilingual students expressed stronger social ties to their cultural communities compared to their monolingual counterparts who conversely expressed a strong desire for second-language acquisition.

These findings led us to conclude that: (1) linguistic diversity can foster a positive school environment by providing opportunities for cultural exchange among different cultures, (2) in-group/out-group biases do not pose negative effects on social relationships among bilingual and monolingual students, (3) bilingualism and second-language acquisition can potentially enhance the social experience of students.

However, these findings are limited by several factors within our study. Firstly, our population of study is representative of a unique environment with a relatively higher proportion of politically liberal, ethnically diverse students than the average American university. Our research is also limited to the study of English-speaking students, restricting our data from being representative of environments with speakers of different dominant languages. Given these limitations, we believe that linguistic diversity thrives most successfully in diverse environments wherein cultural exchange is a social norm and speakers are collectively open-minded to learning

We believe that our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the importance of second-language acquisition in childhood development to enhance social connections in adulthood and potential positive effects of bilingualism in combating cultural differences in diverse settings. Furthermore, these findings highlight the importance of language knowledge of one’s own culture in strengthening community ties and individual identity. We believe that future research in bilingual and monolingual differences should focus on studying the potential positive effects of second-language acquisition on social skills, educational development, and in overcoming cultural differences.

References

Byers‐Heinlein, K., Behrend, D. A., Said, L. M., Girgis, H., & Poulin‐Dubois, D. (2016). Monolingual and bilingual children’s social preferences for monolingual and bilingual speakers. Developmental Science, 20(4). https://doi.org/10.1111/desc.12392

Toppelberg, C. O., & Collins, B. A. (2010). Language, culture, and adaptation in immigrant children. Child and adolescent psychiatric clinics of North America, 19(4), 697–717. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chc.2010.07.003

Wang, L., Gonzalez, P. D., Lau, P. L., Vaughan, E. L., & Costa, M. F. (2023). “Dando gracias”: Gratitude, social connectedness, and subjective happiness among bilingual Latinx college students. Journal of Latinx Psychology, 11(3), 203-219. https://doi.org/10.1037/lat0000227

Sebanc, A. M., Hernandez, M. D., & Alvarado, M. (2009). Understanding, Connection, and Identification: Friendship Features of Bilingual Spanish-English Speaking Undergraduates. Journal of Adolescent Research, 24(2), 194-217. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558408329953

Xu, C. L. (2022). Portraying the ‘Chinese international students’: a review of English-language and Chinese-language literature on Chinese international students (2015–2020). Asia Pacific Education Review, 23(1), 151–167. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12564-021-09731-8

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Gendered Language Word Perception: On the Primary Language Acquisition in Los Angeles Adolescents

Bilingualism

Lily Eun, Maya Gibson-Ott, Desirae Barrios, Katherine Sandoval 

The Theory of Language Relativity suggests that an individual’s primary language shapes their perceptions and worldviews. Our research dives into how a gendered language like Spanish can affect object perception. The research focused on Spanish-speaking university students in Southern California; through surveys and interviews, the research illustrates how native Spanish speakers will assign gender to English words. Our research also included monolingual English-speaking participants as ‘control’ participants and native English speakers who were also bilingual in Spanish; this allowed our researchers to examine the patterns between bilingual and monolingual participants. Our findings illustrate that native Spanish speakers will assign genders to English words based on their Spanish equivalents; these findings indicate that primary languages have a strong linguistic influence on an individual’s perception regardless of their environment’s language. Our results highlight the importance bilingual assessments could have in the educational field. Accurately gauging students’ true intellect and advocating for inclusive language practices in fundamental education will be beneficial for educators to better provide the necessary resources to aid in a bilingual child’s learning. Our study highlights the implications of cross-cultural communication and the necessity of a change of assessment to be more linguistically sensitive for bilingual students.

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Background

The Theory of Language Relativity is crucial to better understand human behaviors and the impacts of these behaviors in the educational world. This theory, also known as the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, claims that the structure of an individual’s primary language changes their worldview and shapes their perceptions. This hypothesis indicates that language is not just a tool of communication but has a deeper connection to an individual’s cognitive processor. And because many individuals residing in Southern California spoke Spanish before they spoke English (Los Angeles Almanac), our research team wanted to explore how a gendered language, such as Spanish, could impact individuals’ perception of gender regarding ‘genderless’ objects. Would our participants inadvertently allot gender connotations even while speaking a genderless language—English? Our field of research has been explored by Meria Sera, a University of Minnesota professor, who found that Spanish—being a gendered language—does influence a Spanish-speaking individual’s perception (Sera 1994). Building on this, we sought to investigate whether Spanish speakers, when questioned in English about the gender of objects, would replicate Sera’s findings regardless that the questions would be in their secondary language. In the educational world, students, whose primary language is Spanish, are required to participate in all placement exams in English only. Our research aims to provide proof as to why having bilingual evaluations in fundamental grade levels is crucial to better evaluating a child’s perception of the world.

Methods

Our research observed and analyzed word choice and gender narratives. In order to expand on the implications of the process of gendering words, we surveyed over a hundred people, the majority of them being undergraduate college students. This survey showed the participants various words, for example, “dress” and asked them to determine if the word was feminine, masculine, or neither. We categorized our participants into different sections, group A who only spoke English, group B who spoke English and learned Spanish as a second language, and group C who spoke Spanish as their first language and English as their second language. Once our initial results were collected, any students interested in additional interviews were contacted a week later and they were asked to repeat the word categorization process. Our team identified any changes in answers and attempted to determine patterns in responses among Native Spanish speakers and English speakers. Furthermore, interviewees were asked to list synonyms or adjectives of a particular word, and we then had the participants categorize those words as being feminine, masculine, or neither. Our goal was to analyze whether or not the perceived gender of words consistently agreed with each other.

Take the Survey for Yourself!

Results

Figure 1: Spanish speakers’ perceived gender of the word “language”

Our results show that native Spanish speakers will indeed gender English words to match the gender of the Spanish counterparts. In our 19 responses from participants who were Native Spanish Speakers, 50% of the responses to the English words were perceived to be the same gender as the gender of the word translated into Spanish. For example, when we asked our participants to identify the gender of the English word “language,” 57.9% of native Spanish speakers identified the word as Masculine. The word “language” in Spanish translates to “el idioma,” which is masculine in gender. During our post-survey interviews, a participant discussed that it felt “more natural” to choose the respective genders, and it had not registered to them that their choices aligned with the gender of the Spanish counterpart until our follow-up interview. When we analyzed the Native English speakers who only spoke English, we found that the participants were comparatively more likely to neutralize the gender of the English words. However, Native English speakers who were conversationally fluent in Spanish showed the greatest percentage of neutralizing the gender of English words. When analyzing Native Spanish speakers and Native English speakers, our results concluded that the more fluent and culturally connected the speaker was to Spanish culture, the more likely they would be to gender English words that do not explicitly show natural gender. Additionally, in explaining why speakers both fluent in Spanish and English chose to neutralize the words, we predicted that someone’s linguistic patterns would be subconsciously integrated to match the American culture that they live and are exposed to on a daily basis.

Figure 2: Native English speakers’ perceived gender of the words “day” and “language”

Discussion

Figure 3: Rates of perceived gender in various words among native Spanish speakers
Figure 4: Rates of perceived gender in various words among native English speakers

The findings in our research show evidence as to why schools should offer bilingual evaluations to youth in the LA area instead of English. Our findings indicate that our native language affects how we think about and perceive the world. Because language alters our reality, we cannot accurately evaluate one’s intelligence level in a language separate from their native tongue. To do so is unfair and a poor representation of intellect. Such evaluations lack the ability to understand the students’ nuances of the world, and, as a result, often serve as an obstacle preventing students from pursuing a higher education. By offering bilingual evaluations to youth in the Los Angeles area we gain a more holistic view of the student’s true intelligence level; by offering these bilingual evaluations fundamental education will better provide educators with the resources they need to work alongside their bilingual students.

The implementation of our research on the gendering of words across English and Spanish may most notably have a distinguishable impact on educators and curriculum developers. Understanding how grammatical gender can influence perception and interpretation—in languages such as Spanish—can provide valuable perspective on cross-cultural communication and can foster greater empathy and inclusivity throughout foundational education discourses.

Language learners may also benefit from recognizing that the way they gender an object or word can be perceived as relating to an opposite gender when speaking in another language. Because language has a fundamental impact on perception, culture, and community, organizations may benefit from incorporating inclusive language and receiving input from individuals of different backgrounds.

References

Geeslin, K. L. (2018). The Handbook of Spanish Second Language Acquisition. Hoboken, Nj: Wiley Blackwell.

Hispanics/Latinos in Los Angeles County – By the Numbers. (n.d.). Retrieved February 16, 2024, from www.laalmanac.com website: https://www.laalmanac.com/population/po722.php#:~:text=3.6%20million

Montrul, S., Foote, R., & Perpiñán, S. (2008). Gender Agreement in Adult Second Language Learners and Spanish Heritage Speakers: The Effects of Age and Context of Acquisition. Language Learning, 58(3), 503–553. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2008.00449.x

Nissen, U. K. (2002, June). Aspects of translating gender. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/26402383_Aspects_of_translating_gender

Pérez-Pereira, M. (1991). The acquisition of gender: what Spanish children tell us. Journal of Child Language, 18(3), 571–590. doi:10.1017/S0305000900011259

Sera, M. D., Berge, C. A., & del Castillo Pintado, J. (1994). Grammatical and conceptual forces in the attribution of gender by English and Spanish speakers. Cognitive development, 9(3), 261-292.

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CODE SWITCHING!: A phenomenon among bilinguals and its deeper role in identity formation

Bilingualism

Leon Kaprielian, Octavio Santana, Sahil Sadiq

In an era marked by globalization and multiculturalism, the phenomenon of code-switching has emerged as a crucial aspect of language dynamics and identity formation among bilinguals. The complexities of code-switching, its popularity, and its deeper ramifications for people navigating many linguistic and cultural domains are explored in this research. We examine how code-switching is used in immigrant communities as a tool for social interaction, identity negotiation, and effective communication through a multidisciplinary lens that takes into account linguistic, cognitive, cultural, and social factors. Based on naturalistic observations and interviews with Farsi, Spanish, and Arabic bilingual speakers, we investigate the complex patterns of code-switching in various age groups and social circumstances. Our research shows that code-switching is a reflection of complex social dynamics, such as social hierarchy, respect for elders, and the maintenance of cultural identity, rather than just a linguistic issue. This study emphasizes how crucial it is to comprehend language practices in a multicultural and globalized world by shedding light on the significance of code-switching in forming people’s identities and social structures.

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Introduction

Code-switching was formerly thought to be a linguistic oddity, but research has since shown that it is a regular aspect of language use. It illustrates the intricate interactions between linguistic, cognitive, cultural, and social elements that influence social interaction and identity formation. Determining the mechanics of bilingualism and multiculturalism, illuminating the complex ways language influences social structures and human interaction requires an understanding of code-switching. 

What is code-switching?!

Code-switching is the fluid transition between two or more languages in a single discourse and is an effective communication and identity-negotiation technique for immigrant communities. Moreover, it is a great way for individuals to build rapport with members who speak the same language.   The informal aspect of this will lead to a higher frequency of code-switching and a willingness to express one’s cultural identity, as opposed to a formal environment.  In terms of the types of code-switching, it comes in three forms, intrasentential, intersentential, and tag switching.

Figure 1: Types of code-switching: intersentential, intra-sentential, and tag-switching

New to code-switching? Here are the methods we used and how you can do it too!

In this post, we’ll discuss methods used for collecting the data that include studying code-switching in a natural environment, and with the authentic use of language by bilingual or multilingual speakers. One of the ways we are going to collect the data is by naturalistic observation. This involves observing naturally occurring conversations in its most pure form, which is essentially the most authentic form of data collection by bilingual and multilingual individuals. To give an extra set of diversity and universality in this regard, there are going to be 3 languages discussed: Farsi, Spanish, and Arabic.

Results

Farsi (Dari)

There is a difference in the amount of code-switching in regards to whether a Gen Z immigrant is speaking with their own age group or with elders.  In Farsi, when one is speaking with elders, it occurs at a much higher frequency and it is more on the “Intersentential” level.  The reasoning is due to 1) Innate understanding that the elders prefer the native language 2) The elders’ proficiency in English is not as advanced.

In regards to when the Gen Z bilinguals speak amongst themselves, there is more English spoken, and during the naturalistic observation, the ratio was 80% English to 20% Farsi.  When the code-switching did occur, unlike with the elders, which (was usually intersentential), it was intrasentential and tag-switching. 

Figure 2: Frequency of code-switching among Farsi speakers (Example: “Bro he’s extremely نابغه (genius) when he explains things. – this is an example of tag-switching)

Lastly, although naturalistic observation was the main method to keep the results as organic as possible, interviews with 2 of the Gen Z members were held to articulate and discuss potential biases and limitations.  One of the members (20 years old) said the code-switching just happened naturally without much thought.  The eldest in the observation (29) said that he does it naturally but also consciously, either due to the fact certain words in Farsi seem articulated better, and also to build rapport with the group culturally, which ties into our main thesis that the phenomenon of code-switching is usually intimately linked to one’s cultural identity.

Spanish

To continue, Spanish and English bilingual speakers tend to gravitate towards an unofficial language, Spanglish. This is when English and Spanish are combined in conversation. Spanglish is a form of code-switching, setting the foundations for forming one’s identity, while simultaneously maintaining their culture.

The method used was a naturalistic observation of a phone call between a bilingual speaker and their parents. They answered the phone in English, just like they do with friends and people of the same age. Spanish was used rarely and the language used had no link to what type of person they were speaking to. The phone then got passed to the speaker’s grandma, and that is when the bilingual speaker started speaking only Spanish. The Spanish the speaker used were easy to decipher that they were speaking to someone of an older age because words like “usted”(you) and “mande”(excuse me) were used. These are formal words and are used when speaking to strangers or elders.

After tallying up the number of formal words used in the phone call, all of them came when speaking Spanish, except one coming from English. The research shows that code-switching can occur within a family and also how a change of language is made to show respect. The same goal could not be achieved with English, since Spanish has an emphasis on formal speaking, causing the speaker to have a complete shift of identity when code-switching.

Figure 2: Frequency of formal words used between Spanish and English from a bilingual speaker

Language is inherently tied to respect when concerning age, class, and gender in Spanish, showing how language can shape the way one thinks.

Arabic

Bilingual Arabic speakers are more likely to use religious jargon (inshallah, mashallah) when interacting with parents and other elders. When speaking to friends, siblings, and cousins they are most likely to speak a 70/30 mix of English and Arabic in contrast to a 20/80 mix when speaking to Elders. Another important consideration is the intonations and accents used for certain words when speaking each language. Because Arabic and English have a very different set of sounds, the same word can be pronounced differently depending on the spoken language. For example, most native speakers of both English and Arabic know that Pepsi – with a p – is the correct pronunciation of the soda, however, they will still pronounce it like Bebsi with a b sound when speaking Arabic. This is done to signal that the speaker is native in Arabic and is part of the Society of native Arabic speakers who do not use the P sound.

Discussion and Conclusions

All three languages investigated truly show just how intricate and complex languages are, especially when it comes to code-switching. Our research shows how code-switching plays an extremely crucial role in forming one’s identity and how it goes beyond just language. It reflects social dynamics like social status, respect for elders, and cultural identity preservation. Our study contributes to the gap of knowledge of understanding how native languages travel down from generation to generation in immigrant families in America, and how code-switching shapes who we are and the social groups we belong to.

References

Albirini, A. (2011). The sociolinguistic functions of codeswitching between Standard Arabic and Dialectal Arabic. Language in society, 40(5), 537-562.

Heller, M. (2020). Code-switching and the politics of language. In The bilingualism reader (pp. 163-176). Routledge.

Kachramanian, C. (2021). Bilingual Interactions: An Investigation into Code-switching and Its Purposes among Armenian-Dutch Bilinguals.

Klavans, J. L. (1985). The syntax of code-switching: Spanish and English. In Proceedings of the Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (Vol. 14, pp. 213-231). Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Martin-Jones, M. (1995). Code-switching in the classroom: Two decades of research. One speaker, two languages: Cross-disciplinary perspectives on code-switching, 90-111.

Myers‐Scotton, C. (2017). Code‐switching. The handbook of sociolinguistics, 217-237.

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The Power of Bilingualism: Cultural Identification Amongst LA Bilinguals

Bilingualism

Marnie Cavanaugh, Reese Gover, Ethan Lee, Elisa Marin, Eva Reyman

Did you know that Los Angeles is the second most bilingual city in the US? Intrigued by the relevance of this topic, we were interested in taking a deeper dive into how the bilingual experience in LA shapes cultural identification and belonging, focusing on bilingual Spanish speakers. Although bilingualism can allow someone to connect to a broader range of people, we hypothesized at the beginning of our research that English-Spanish bilinguals in LA may feel cultural isolation. Feeling too American to connect to Hispanic culture, but with the knowledge of the Spanish language, too Hispanic to fit into American mainstream culture. However, our research concluded that being bilingual does not hinder one’s ability to connect with multicultural communities. Rather, bilingualism enhances it. Bilingualism helps thousands in the LA area connect with their Hispanic culture through the use of Spanish and American mainstream culture through their knowledge of English. Speech communities become expanded through their understanding of two or more languages. Cultural identification does not have to mean choosing one culture over the other. Many bilingual individuals choose to identify cross-culturally. Bilingualism in the LA area seems to be a tool to form greater connections rather than a tool that inhibits one’s ability to understand their cultural identification.

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Introduction and Background

Our project examines Spanish-English bilingualism within Los Angeles, specifically focusing on how speaking Spanish and English affects the size and strength of speakers’ speech communities. Our community of practice is Spanish-English bilinguals who primarily reside in Los Angeles. Among this population, we studied the narrative aspects of language and language in use, asking bilinguals to tell their own stories through a mix of semi-structured interviews and survey responses. Using these methods, we examined how Spanish-English bilinguals in L.A. utilize their knowledge of both languages to signal belonging in various speech communities and how their bilingualism affects the communities to which they belong. Our main questions are: What role does Spanish-English bilingualism play in the size of one’s speech community within Los Angeles? Does Spanish-English bilingualism lead to increased community, or does it cause feelings of isolation? We hypothesized that, though bilingualism may theoretically create larger speech communities, Spanish-English bilinguals in L.A. may feel isolated from English- and Spanish-speaking communities.

Bilingualism is a trait that most people in the world share (Schroeder et al. 2017). But much of the bilingual experience is yet to be discovered. Our focus on the development of cultural identity amongst Spanish-English bilinguals in Los Angeles fits within the knowledge gaps in previous research surrounding this topic.

Ana Sanchez-Munoz (2018) discusses Los Angeles as a bilingual, bicultural city, emphasizing the unique role that Spanish and English speakers play in creating their sociolinguistic environment. Her research examines language practices in educational settings, finding that English is more commonly spoken than Spanish, suggesting that Spanish-English bilinguals may assume different linguistic identities in formal (i.e., educational) and casual settings. Thus, we were inspired to obtain data on the languages that Spanish-English bilinguals utilize more often in different social environments.

Likewise, Norma Mendoza-Denton and Bryan James Gordon (2011) argue that Hispanic identity is mediated through language ideologies prioritizing English speakers over Spanish speakers. Bilinguals occupy a liminal space, where they’re privileged over non-English speakers, especially in professional settings, and pressured to fit within an English-majority society through linguistic assimilation (Mendoza-Denton & Gordon 2011). Their research provides a framework for us to formulate interview questions surrounding participants’ feelings of inclusion/exclusion within English- and Spanish-speaking communities.

Moreover, Carmen Silva-Corvolan (1986) observed 27 Spanish-English bilinguals in East L.A., researching the effects of linguistic contact between multiple languages. She found that where consistent language contact occurs, linguistic simplification often follows. This is important to consider not only to understand how bilinguals may have differing levels of fluency in different languages but also because the shifts in language unique to Los Angeles bilinguals suggest the formation of unique, bilingual-focused speech communities.

Research focusing on the cognitive and developmental aspects of bilingualism helped structure our survey and interview questions. Raluca Barac and Ellen Bialystok (2012) discuss the effects of bilingualism on cognitive ability. A survey of 104 bilingual and monolingual six-year-olds found that bilingual children performed better on cognitive tasks when they received instructions in their primary language (Barac & Bialystok 2012). The findings from this study suggest that Spanish-English bilinguals may feel more comfortable utilizing the language they learned first and thus participate more in the speech communities associated with their primary language.

This literature review provided us with a baseline of knowledge. It structured our methods, allowing us to explore the topic of cultural identification among Spanish-English bilinguals in Los Angeles in an informed, systematic manner. Our findings suggest that contrary to our hypothesis, speaking Spanish is integral to participants’ feelings of inclusion in both Spanish and English speech communities. The majority of participants reported feelings of belonging to both language communities. Additionally, many participants noted that bilingualism was a beneficial attribute in their personal and professional lives.

Methods

We used three different methods of data collection to provide our project with a well-rounded, comprehensive understanding of our topic. First, we utilized a review of relevant literature (noted above) to provide context and relevant information for our research. As well, the knowledge gaps we identified justified our research questions. Second, we used a 14-question survey incorporating True/False, Likert scale, and optional open-ended questions. The criteria for survey respondents were that they are Spanish-English bilinguals primarily residing in Los Angeles; responses were anonymous, though demographic data (age, gender, primary language) was collected. Finally, we utilized a 15-question, semi-structured interview to gain in-depth, qualitative data. Each group member conducted one interview, resulting in five interviews. Similarly to survey participants, interviewees were required to be Spanish-English bilinguals primarily residing in Los Angeles. Interviews lasted 20-30 minutes each. The observable elements of communication we studied included participants’ fluency in both languages, the speech communities they most identified with and participated in, and feelings of isolation or inclusion regarding speech communities.

Results and Analysis

We first surveyed Spanish-English bilingualism and received nineteen responses. The survey had twelve demographic, multiple choice, true/false, and Likert-scale type questions, as well as two optional open-ended questions, where respondents could expand on their previous answers. We received seven responses for these open-ended questions, which expanded on the question, “Do you ever feel isolated from one culture because you don’t know Spanish/English enough to feel included?” We also received eight responses expanding on the true/false statement, “Bilingualism helps me more than it hurts me.” The survey questions and responses are shown in Figures 1, 2, and 3 below.

Figure 1: Responses to survey question: “Do you ever feel isolated from one culture because you don’t know Spanish/English enough to feel included?”
Figure 2: Responses to survey prompt: “Bilingualism helps me more than it hurts me”
Figure 3: Responses to survey question: “Which culture do you identify more with?”

After the survey, we each conducted one interview. Table 1 provides select quotes from each interview, along with the main themes that these quotes suggest. Out of five interviewees, two specifically mentioned feeling insecure speaking Spanish and fearing they would be made fun of for their speaking ability, one interviewee stated “[in Argentina] I don’t feel like I’m Hispanic enough”. The other two interviewees didn’t mention personal experiences of feeling isolated. Despite citing feelings of isolation, interviewees also spoke about how bilingualism is beneficial. Interviewees stated that their speech community is larger and their connection to their heritage increased due to their ability. Bilingualism was seen as a positive trait that they desired to pass on.

Table 1: Quotes from interviews with five Spanish-English bilinguals

Discussion and Conclusions

Throughout the study, we found our original hypothesis that Spanish-English bilinguals would feel isolated to be generally incorrect. Our interviewees claim that being bilingual has aided them in the way of social and professional opportunities, with one stating “I’ve had more educational opportunities since I do research in Spanish [at university]”. While two of our interviewees explicitly expressed insecurity about speaking Spanish, it was a general feeling among our interviewees that bilingualism made them feel included. Our interviewees see their bilingualism as a crucial part of their identity and a method for connecting with their heritage. Interviewees cited connection to culture as a main reason for wanting to pass on bilingualism. The data collected is useful for understanding the importance of language to Hispanic identity in Spanish-English bilinguals.

References

Ahearn, L. M. (2021). Living Language: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. Wiley Blackwell.

Barac, R., & Bialystok, E. (2012). Bilingual Effects on Cognitive and Linguistic Development: Role of Language, Cultural Background, and Education. Child Development, 83(2), 413–422. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41416093

Mendoza-Denton, N., & Gordon, B. J. (2011). Language and Social Meaning in Bilingual Mexico and the United States. In The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics (pp. 553–578). Wiley-Blackwell. https://www.norma-mendoza-denton.com/_files/ugd/e4ef1f_932d492a6a7e4b73ba091db41ee046f3.pdf

Sanchez-Munoz, A. (2019). Bilingualism in California: The Case of Los Angeles. In Biculturalism and Spanish in Contact: Sociolinguistic Case Studies (pp. 51–68). Taylor & Francis/Routledge.

Schroeder, S. R., Lam, T. Q., & Marian, V. (2017). Linguistic Predictors of Cultural Identification in Bilinguals. Applied linguistics, 38(4), 463–488. https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/amv049

Silva-Corvalan, C. (1986). Bilingualism and Language Change: The Extension of Estar in Los Angeles Spanish. Language, 62(3), 587–608. https://doi.org/10.2307/415479

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Spanglish – The Art of Code-Switching

Bilingualism

Devan, Jessica Jary, Malia Salgado, Mao Mao, Valeria Carreon

In Hispanic neighborhoods, “Spanglish”— a linguistic practice that combines Spanish and English—has gained popularity as a way to communicate, even if some people do not realize that it involves code-switching. While the Chicanx and Latinx community is made up of people from a wide range of backgrounds, most of them are Spanish-English bilingual. In this research project, our group sought to investigate that when they are being interviewed, whether the Spanglish bilingual individuals would tend to code-switch, or rely heavily on one specific language while still understanding the other. We chose this research focus because we believe that studying the connection between the mixing of languages and the topic of conversation, as well as finding how often speakers code-switch, can help other Spanish-English bilingual speakers learn the semantics behind each individual code switch, thus breaking language barriers. We hypothesized that because of the participants’ daily reliance on both English and Spanish, code-switching via Spanglish would be prevalent in the interviews we conducted.

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Methods

In order to test our hypothesis, we decided to interview five to ten individuals who are able to understand English and Spanish and speak both languages to varying degrees of fluency. Our interviews consisted of ten questions, five were asked in English and the other five were asked in Spanish. The participants were interviewed individually in various environments and locations, and through various methods including questionnaires, phone interviews, recorded disputes, and gossip interviews. The age range of our participants is from 18 to 55. All of them come from Mexican households and are either first or second-generation immigrants, but all described themselves as bilinguals and having spent the majority of their lives in the United States. Our younger interviewees have all lived in the United States for their entire lives and have learned Spanish from the older generations, whereas the older interviewees all immigrated to the United States in search of a better future, and they picked up English after their immigration. Nevertheless, our research is able to determine that members of this community code-switch and employ Spanish in their everyday lives, despite the fact that these participants come from very diverse origins. For the interviews that were specifically on ages 18-25, we noticed a more noticeable code-switching when answering the question. For our tables below we witness that younger interviewees felt more comfortable jumping in between languages. They use more words like “pues” “ósea” “si” “no”. Another example we can look at is this dialogue that was said during the interview by a 19-year-old.

Question: “What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

Answer : “ Social media marketing, algo asi”

Question: “What was your favorite childhood meal?”

Answer: “Rice and beans, revueltos?”

Question: “Cual es tu vacación ideal?”

Answer: “ Tropical area in a small town and like an ocean front house, view”

Question: “La mejor fiesta que haz tenido?”

Answer: “When I was eighteen”

Figure 1: Uses of Spanish, English, and Spanglish among interviewees

Whilst interviewing our older interviewees between the ages of 35-55, we noticed that these individuals tended to try to stick to speaking one language whilst answering the questions. 3 out of 4 of the interviewees in this category that we interviewed chose to answer all questions in English even though their native language is Spanish. As a result of Spanish being their dominant language whilst answering the 10 questions, these interviewees struggled quite a bit while trying to come up with English responses. Even though they were struggling, these 3 individuals stuck to answering in English even though they understood they could answer questions in Spanish, which we can see in the example below.

(During the beginning of an interview, she started speaking English and stated “My name is” before proceeding to tell me she would much rather speak en Español/ in Spanish. Additionally, she usually answered the questions I asked in English in the same language) :

First question

Question: What did you want to be when you grew up?

Answer: “Nurse”

Question: “Why did you want to be a nurse?”

Answer: “Because I like it. Take care of the kids.”

Second question

Answer: “Chile rellenos, rice, and beans”

Question: “Why do you like rice and beans? What do you like about them?”

Answer: “Because my mother show me how to make it when I was little kid.”

Third question

Answer: “My plan for tomorrow. Work. I have to work.”

Fourth question

Answer: “Aliens– That’s not real. I don’t believe in that.”

Fifth question

Answer: “Sunday– When i’m not working I go to the church with my sister sometime.”

Question: “Do you like going to church?”

Answer: “Yea”

With this, we concluded, and observed distinct dynamics in the nature of conversation for interviewees, which prompted us to make adjustments throughout the process. Notably, individuals aged 30 and above, primarily parents or older adults, approached the interviews with a more formal tone. They consistently responded in the language the question was initially posed, even if English presented some challenges for them. However, the interactions with friends and close family members, ranging from 18 to 25 years old, established a more relaxed atmosphere. This rise in comfort level led to much more frequent code-switching for the older adults, as they seamlessly shifted between the two languages. Recognizing that a strict question-and-answer format might yield more formal responses, we decided to incorporate recorded conversations on various topics. Subsequently, our findings indicated that the frequency of code-switching was less influenced by the relationship dynamics and more by the nature of the conversation topic. This discovery led us to uncover numerous instances of code-switching in these recorded discussions.

Discussion and Conclusions

Overall, our research successfully validated our hypothesis through multiple avenues of investigation. Notably, we demonstrated that Spanish-English bilingual speakers transition between codes more often than they may think. Moreover, a pattern surfaced during our research: participants tended to match the language used in the responses in formal interviews that were organized around predetermined questions. Nevertheless, in more relaxed conversational contexts, this pattern did not continue. Instead, participants were able to switch between languages with ease in familiar settings, even mixing vocabulary from both linguistic domains. This highlights the profound interacting influence of Hispanic culture and American culture on the Spanglish bilingual speakers, and showcases the intricate dynamics of living with two languages daily. It further underscores the evolution of Spanglish as a unique linguistic bridge, allowing us to forge a connection between both languages. Moreover, it emphasizes the significant presence of the Spanglish-speaking community, providing a touching connection to their ancestral roots while fostering a sense of closeness to the newly found home.

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Bilingual Investigation

Bilingualism

Hana Almony, Lauren Campsey, Hannah Her, Ariana Cheng, Madeline Flood

In everyday discourse, language is influential in how we speak and engage with others. Specifically, looking at bilingual native Spanish, second language English speakers was explored in this study because the question we sought to answer was does an individual’s native language have an influence on a second language? To investigate this question, we hypothesized that it indeed does, and the language that one speaks will impact responses to the same interview questions in both Spanish and English. In conducting this research, agents of socialization were considered because the participants were native Spanish speakers with English as a second language so interview questions were geared towards the significance of language in relation to identity and self-expression. Moreover, this relates to the idea of linguistic relativity as this shows that one’s particular language use is correlated with one’s perception and idea of reality. In this study, linguistic relativity was evident when analyzing bilingual female individual participants in which we found similarities and differences in responses of each respective language. The goal of this study is to inform about the effects of language use through the modality of bilingual speakers and how language choice through one’s thinking may connect to specific conversations and everyday discourse.

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Introduction and Background

Have you ever thought about how the language you speak affects the way you view the world around you? By understanding how language functions within society we can have a greater understanding of how impactful linguistic practices can be. For our project we chose to view bilingualism and how modality can affect perception. More specifically, in the context of native Spanish speakers with English as their second language. To investigate this hypothesis we used points of reference from Claire Kramsch’s Language and Culture and Nick Riemer’s book called Routledge Handbook of Semantics. Riemer’s book is a collection of the works of many leading scholars and academics from around the world. Both Kramsch and Reimer provide an overview of entire linguistic subjects and sub-disciplines. We focused on chapters such as modality, participant roles, and linguistic relativity in order to gain meaning and conceptualization. We also read articles from the Linguistic Society of America such as “Language and Thought” and “Linguistics in Everyday Life” to gain a greater understanding of linguistic theories in order to apply them to our research. We looked specifically at linguistic relativity to answer our question on how language can influence perception and the way we think paired with bilingual studies to help analyze differences within Spanish-English speakers.

Methods

To gather our data, we were able to interview five female individuals in the UCLA community who are native speakers of Spanish and also learned English as a second language. The setup of the interview was semi-structured and in-person with audio-recording for each participant. Two separate interviews were conducted by a bilingual group member, consisting of the same set of 10 questions in English and Spanish. Questions varied from how being bilingual affects communication and expression and how they use it in their daily lives. We also had controls in our study to limit variability throughout the interviews. The controls are the same set of interview questions in both English and Spanish, one interviewer to maintain the same personality and comfortability throughout the interviews, the same gender combination of a female interviewer and female participant for similar interaction types, having the participants bilingual in those two languages only, and maintaining similar environment conditions (time of day, public, and approximate number of people around). After the audio files finished processing, each version was manually transcribed by each group member and compared to see any similarities or differences in results. We looked into various aspects of modality in bilingualism and how it affects conversations and word choice. In relation to our hypothesis, the comparison between each interview was very surprising.

Results and Analysis

Throughout our interviews, we found that there were many similarities and differences in the participants’ responses. Though we were expecting differences specifically between each participant’s English and Spanish answers, we learned that the language didn’t completely dictate how the participants expressed themselves. The responses in general in both Spanish and English were very similar, if not the same, in both languages. The participants also all agreed that they spoke with an accent in English and Spanish, reflecting the influence on each language. The participants’ linguistic identities have pieces of English and Spanish – they are aware of their link to each of these languages and cultures, creating a consciousness in their pronunciations. We also noticed that when answering questions in Spanish, there were more pauses – these pauses did not have a specific pattern and differed between the participants, indicating that this has to do with their thought process in word choice. The participants shared that they mainly spoke Spanish with their family members and occasionally with friends depending on the environment. This language-specific context shows that they associate their linguistic identity with English for most of their communication, hence the pausing had more to do with comfortability with the language than for cultural reasons. Another way the interviews differed was the length and detail within answers in Spanish compared to English. According to Reimer (2016), a language can influence what or how much information is shared by the speaker. This was apparent when analyzing the different answers for each language. The English responses were more engaging and personal compared to in Spanish, signifying a linguistic influence over word choice and sentence length.

Figure 1: Sample responses in English and Spanish for the interview question “Happiness to me is …”
Figure 2: Sample responses in English and Spanish for the interview question “When did you start speaking Spanish and when did you start learning English?”

The examples above show the main findings of our study. Figure 1 highlights our last interview question, “Happiness to me is …” All of the participants’ answers had to do with love for someone – in this example, family. This depicts how the answer to this particular question was the same in both languages, reflecting that the individual shares the same values and thoughts in both languages. The lack of detail was prominent in many other questions as seen in Figure 2, asking the question, “When did you start speaking Spanish and when did you start learning English?” Though the general answer was similar, the participant went into more detail about their childhood when answering in English. The concept of linguistic relativity, though not in the traditional sense, was prominent in our study – the participants were all L2-English Native Spanish speakers and through their answers, we can see how, outside of family, English is the more spoken language, creating a sense of normalcy and identity within the English language.

Discussion and Conclusions

Within a conversation, the particular language an individual is speaking in can influence how they express themselves and this can largely be attributed to how culture and language are so intertwined (Kramsch, 2014). With this connection in mind, we hypothesized that L2-English Native Spanish speakers will have different responses to the same questions depending on the language that they are speaking in. Though our assumption was that there would be vastly different responses, in reality, the degree of the linguistic relativity of the responses was not as high as anticipated. The data revealed that participants had very similar responses in both languages, but the Spanish responses were shorter and less detailed than the English responses. We observed agents of socialization when analyzing our interviews as L2-English Native Spanish speakers had a deeper connection to their family structure. We learned that these specific participants have mainly tied Spanish to family members and situations. The connection between language and their background creates strong cultural bonds within the community. There were limitations in our study that may have contributed to our results. There were a total of five participants. This is a relatively small sample size. If a similar experiment were to be done in the future, the results would be more accurate with a larger sample size for a greater range in human variability to produce a more precise conclusion. These participants, though native Spanish speakers, have grown up and lived in the United States for a majority of their lives – we did not take into consideration the role of cultural assimilation, reflecting the likelihood that their answers in both languages would be very similar. This raises the question of how the participants relate to Spanish. The results of our study have taught us the role of language in our thought process and communication and the importance of being more aware and mindful in our everyday interactions as our language choice can contribute to how others feel in the conversation.

References

Aneta Pavlenko, Blackledge, A., Piller, I., & Teutsch-Dwyer, M. (2001). Multilingualism, Second Language Learning, and Gender. Berlin, New York De Gruyter Mouton.

Becker, K. R. (1997). Spanish/English Bilingual Codeswitching: A Syncretic Model. Bilingual Review / La Revista Bilingüe, 22(1), 3–30. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25745367

Bohman, T. M., Bedore, L. M., Peña, E. D., Mendez-Perez, A., & Gillam, R. B. (2010). What you hear and what you say: language performance in Spanish–English bilinguals.

International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 13(3), 325–344. https://doi.org/10.1080/13670050903342019

Comrie, B. (2012). Language and Thought | Linguistic Society of America. Linguisticsociety.org. https://www.linguisticsociety.org/resource/language-and-thought

Jacqueline Toribio, Almeida. “Code‐Switching among us latinos.” The Handbook of Hispanic Sociolinguistics, 4 Feb. 2011, pp. 530–552, https://doi.org/10.1002/9781444393446.ch25.

Jesús-Ortiz, E., & Calvo-Ferrer, J. R. (2023, November 25). His or Her? Errors in Possessive Determiners Made by L2-English Native Spanish Speakers. Languages, 8(4), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.3390/languages8040278

Kanno, Y. (2003). Negotiating bilingual and bicultural identities: Japanese returnees betwixt two worlds. L. Erlbaum.

Kramsch, C. (2014). Language and Culture. AILA Review, 27(1), 30–55. https://doi.org/10.1075/aila.27.02kra

Linguistics in Everyday Life | Linguistic Society of America. (n.d.). Www.linguisticsociety.org. Retrieved March 16, 2024, from https://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/linguistics-everyday-life#Domain

Niño-MurciaM. (2009). Bilingualism and identity: Spanish at the crossroads with other languages. Benjamins.

Ramírez, D. (2003). L1 regression in Spanish-English bilinguals. In Selected proceedings of the first workshop on Spanish sociolinguistics (pp. 89-95). Somerville: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.

Riemer, N. (2019). The Routledge handbook of semantics. Milton Park, Abingdon New York, Ny Routledge.

Slobin, D. (1996). Social interaction, Social Context, and Language. Psychology Press.

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Fluency Ideologies Amongst Undergraduate Bi- and Multilinguals

Bilingualism

Kendall Vanderwouw, Rachel Liu, Julia Tran, Nessa Laxamana, Thalia Rothman

UCLA is an incredibly diverse institution, with over 5,000 international students and 100 nations being represented. It is no surprise, then, that they boast a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. From this wealth of information, we sought to explore fluency ideologies amongst bi- and multilingual undergraduates, aged 18 to 22. Through this course and personal experiences, it’s become evident that the definition of fluency is in constant flux. A largely self-defined term, fluency could encompass everything from native-level repertoire to conversational proficiency. Thus, we aimed to investigate whether linguistic background impacted self-perception of fluency.

We engaged in semi-structured interviews with 30 undergraduates to explore this phenomenon and its implications amongst different languages. As we dove deeper, however, we observed little variation in how different languages defined fluency. Rather, most participants revealed similar definitions, centering around, “the ability to express feelings and complex ideas.” Instead, participants expressed a positive relationship between self-perceived fluency and a sense of familial or cultural connection. This finding and others ultimately led us to a new research question that targeted whether an individual’s fluency in a language, upbringing, environment, and cultural background can influence linguistic identity.

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Introduction and Background

Our research began with questions regarding linguistic identity and fluency. Why do definitions of fluency fluctuate? Are definitions of fluency influenced by our linguistic backgrounds? What is the role of fluency in our cultural lives? Our participant pool represented a variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds with which to answer these questions. This unique context provided a near-direct perspective into the context of language acquisition since many students had recently left backgrounds of language learning or were still in proximity to them, such as high school and familial environments.

We examined these curiosities through a series of interviews, taking an ethnographic approach to gain a more holistic understanding of the perspectives of our participants. After consolidating interview data, our research focus pivoted in a slightly different direction, one that looked at how a variety of factors—including fluency—can influence one’s linguistic identity. Our central research question was finalized as such:

Does an individual’s fluency in a language, upbringing, environment, and cultural background influence their linguistic identity?

Overall, our project ultimately represented a variety of linguistic backgrounds and cultural identities, with 18 languages spoken by 30 different speakers. This is visually represented in Figure 1, created by one of our group members to illustrate the linguistic diversity of our participants.

Figure 1: Tran, J. (2024). A map illustrating the linguistic and cultural spread of our participants

 To garner a more in-depth understanding of our topic and to examine the current state of research, we engaged with readings regarding fluency ideologies as well as bi- and multi-lingual experiences. Such research provided context that informed our later analyses and conclusions.

For example, we found in several articles (Zubrzycki 2019; King 2013) that self-perceived fluency had the potential to give rise to shame or embarrassment in being unable to match the proficiency of others who may be exhibiting native-level fluency. Such ideologies create the daunting expectation that fluency necessitates a native-level mastery of a language. In addition to these academic sources, we found similar ideologies being proliferated through less formal means, such as YouTube videos. One video from Ted-Ed discussed the benefits of bilingualism to our brains, and in doing so put forth the concept of a “balanced bilingual,” which they describe as an individual who has equal proficiency in their languages. The video puts this idea forth, however, in order to make the point that the majority of bi- and multi-lingual speakers use their languages in different proportions and in varying scenarios. We found that videos such as this help to contribute towards a less stringent narrative of fluency that could lessen the shame caused by self-comparison to native speakers. 

Figure 2; Ted-Ed. (2015). A screenshot from the Ted-Ed video discussing bilingualism and how it may affect an individual’s brain.

This left our group wondering whether such ideologies would be found amongst our participants, and what factors would lead to the formation of the expectation to be natively fluent. Overall, these initial investigations revealed to us that there are certainly links between linguistic identity and fluency self-perception. Our goal through this project was to contribute to this existing pool of knowledge and to provide a voice for our participants to express their unique ideologies.

Methods

Using semi-structured interviews, comprising of 12 standardized questions, we decided to take an ethnographic approach to our data collection. Through this process, we searched for self-perceptions of fluency, past language acquisition environments, as well as any current language ideologies regarding themselves. This methodology was deliberately chosen in order to produce consistent, qualitative data while also providing room for our participants to elaborate upon concepts and topics of their choosing. When permission was granted, we recorded the interviews for the purpose of deeper analysis as well as direct quoting in our project. Our participant pool were undergraduate college students, aged 18 to 22 years old.

Some of the questions that we asked were as follows: “In what circumstances / how often do you use this (these) language(s)?”, “How do you define being “fluent” in a language?”, and “Was it important to your parents/community that you were fluent in this language? What about you?”

Results and Analysis

Our data provided us with different viewpoints and ideologies regarding bilingualism and multilingualism. However, 60% of our participants defined fluency as the ability to express feelings and complex ideas, beyond the introductory phase in the language they speak. Some participants were more descriptive, stating that the ability to speak about specific things, such as the country’s government system, or even cultural idioms or slang. Some were less specific, stating that if you can get by in daily scenarios, you are fluent. 

Figure 3; Laxamana, Nessa. (2024). A graphic showcasing how our participants defined fluency.

We also were able to discover different values that our participants held knowing their other language(s). 77% of our participants stated that they used their language to communicate with their family members, which is why they were able to become fluent in their language. This shows that language serves as a communication between different generations of people, for example between grandkids and grandparents.

Figure 4; Laxamana, Nessa. (2024). A pie chart illustrating when and where our participants use their non-dominant languages.

We interviewed those born in and outside the U.S., and one interviewee stated that being fluent in that language makes them feel more connected to their culture as seen in EX. 1. However, the variation in answers slightly differed between those born in different countries and those born in the U.S. For those born outside the U.S., they stated that their fluency in the language was a way to connect them back home. For those born in the U.S., they stated that fluency in the language was influential in how connected to their culture/mother tongue.

EX. 1

Discussion and Conclusion

At the center of our research was an investigation into the factors that make up and influence linguistic identity. We ultimately align our definition of linguistic identity with a reading from our initial research (Dressler 2014, p. 43), which argues that “linguistic identity can be expressed in terms of expertise (i.e. linguistic competence), affiliation (formal or informal connections), or inheritance (familial connections).” None of these factors were considered to be mutually exclusive in our research. As previously exemplified, the linguistic identities of our participants were commonly observed to be in line with more than one of the pathways mentioned above. Most importantly, our research brought about more understanding of how people’s various reasons for their language fluency are intertwined largely with their understanding of culture and belonging. Language and communication with others are important to keeping cultures and traditions alive, it serves as a sense of cultural connection for most. With our findings, we discovered an insight into how language fluency, ideology, and culture intertwine with one another.

References

Dressler, R. (2015). Exploring Linguistic Identity in Young Multilingual Learners. TESL Canada Journal, 32 (1), 42. https://doi.org/10.18806/tesl.v32i1.1198

King, K. A. (2013). A Tale of Three Sisters: Language Ideologies, Identities, and Negotiations in a Bilingual, Transnational Family. International Multilingual Research Journal, 7(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/19313152.2013.746800

Ted-Ed. (2015, June 23). The benefits of a bilingual brain – Mia Nacamulli [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMmOLN5zBLY

Zubrzycki, K. (2019). Am I perfect enough to be a true bilingual? Monolingual bias in the lay perception and self-perception of bi- and multilinguals . International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching, 57(4), 447-495. https://doi.org/10.1515/iral-2016-0095

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