Puerto Rican attitudes towards the acquisition of English as a second language

Puerto Rican attitudes towards the acquisition of English as a second language PDF Author: Elizabeth A. Barrows
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adult students
Languages : es
Pages : 42

Get Book Here

Book Description

Puerto Rican attitudes towards the acquisition of English as a second language

Puerto Rican attitudes towards the acquisition of English as a second language PDF Author: Elizabeth A. Barrows
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Adult students
Languages : es
Pages : 42

Get Book Here

Book Description


Cultural Background of Attitudes of Puerto Ricans in the Acquisition of English as a Second Language

Cultural Background of Attitudes of Puerto Ricans in the Acquisition of English as a Second Language PDF Author: Lillibeth Ratcliffe García
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book Here

Book Description


Puerto Rican Discourse

Puerto Rican Discourse PDF Author: Lourdes M. Torres
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136687890
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 162

Get Book Here

Book Description
Before conclusions about Spanish in the United States can be drawn, individual communities must be studied in their own contexts. That is the goal of Puerto Rican Discourse. One tendency of previous work on Spanish in the United States has been an eagerness to generalize the findings of isolated studies to all Latino communities, but the specific sociocultural contexts in which people -- and languages -- live often demand very different conclusions. The results of Torres' work indicate that the Spanish of Puerto Ricans living in Brentwood continues to survive in a restricted context. Across the population of Brentwood -- for Puerto Ricans of all ages and language proficiencies -- the Spanish language continues to assume an important practical, symbolic, and affective role. An examination of the structural features of 60 oral narratives -- narrative components and the verbal tenses associated with each, overall Spanish verb use, and clause complexity -- reveals little evidence of the simplification and loss across generations found in other studies of Spanish in the United States. English-dominant Puerto Ricans are able Spanish language narrators demonstrating a wide variety of storytelling skills. The structure of their oral narratives is as complete and rich as the narratives of Spanish-dominant speakers. The content of these oral narratives of personal experience is also explored. Too often in studies on U.S. Spanish, sociolinguists ignore the words of the community; the focus is usually on the grammatical aspects of language use and rarely on the message conveyed. In this study, oral narratives are analyzed as constructions of gendered and ethnically marked identities. The stories demonstrate the contradictory positions in which many Puerto Ricans find themselves in the United States. All of the speakers in this study have internalized, to a greater or lesser extent, dominant ideologies of gender, ethnicity, and language, at the same time that they struggle against such discourse. The analysis of the discourse of the community reveals how the status quo is both reproduced and resisted in the members' narratives, and how ideological forces work with other factors, such as attitudes, to influence the choices speakers make concerning language use. A special feature of this book is that transcripts are provided in both Spanish and English. This volume combines ethnographic, quantitative, and qualitative discourse methodologies to provide a comprehensive and novel analysis of language use and attitudes of the Brentwood Puerto Rican community. Its rich linguistic and ethnographic data will be of interest to researchers and teachers in cultural communication, ethnic (Hispanic-American) studies, sociolinguistics, and TESL.

The Unlinking of Language and Puerto Rican Identity

The Unlinking of Language and Puerto Rican Identity PDF Author: Brenda Domínguez-Rosado
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443882097
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 120

Get Book Here

Book Description
Language and identity have an undeniable link, but what happens when a second language is imposed on a populace? Can a link be broken or transformed? Are the attitudes towards the imposed language influential? Can these attitudes change over time? The mixed-methods results provided by this book are ground-breaking because they document how historical and traditional attitudes are changing towards both American English (AE) and Puerto Rican Spanish (PRS) on an island where the population has been subjected to both Spanish and US colonization. There are presently almost four million people living in Puerto Rico, while the Puerto Rican diaspora has surpassed it with more than this living in the United States alone. Because of this, many members of the diaspora no longer speak PRS, yet consider themselves to be Puerto Rican. Traditional stances against people who do not live on the island or speak the predominant language (PRS) yet wish to identify themselves as Puerto Rican have historically led to prejudice and strained relationships between people of Puerto Rican ancestry. The sample study provided here shows that there is not only a change in attitude towards the traditional link between PRS and Puerto Rican identity (leading to the inclusion of diasporic Puerto Ricans), but also a wider acceptance of the English language itself on this Caribbean island.

Puerto Rican 9th Grade Public-school Student Attitudes Towards English as a Second Language

Puerto Rican 9th Grade Public-school Student Attitudes Towards English as a Second Language PDF Author: J. Geoffrey Starron
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 592

Get Book Here

Book Description
Abstract: This research project compared mean scores for political affiliation (pro-statehood, pro-independence, or pro-commonwealth), level of parental education (elementary school, high school diploma or college degree) time spent in the mainland (less than 3 months, between three and twelve months or more than 12 months) and gender (male or female) against indexes and subscales of the Espejo de Actitudes, a Spanish-language version of selected indexes and subscales of the Attitude-Motivation Test Battery. The indexes tested comprised the Instrumental Index, the Motivation Index, the Instrumental Index and the English Anxiety Index. The component subscales of the Integrative Index were the Attitudes Towards Americans, Attitudes Towards Foreigners and the Integrative Orientation. The Motivation Index comprised the Interest in Foreign languages, Desire to Learn English and Motivational Intensity subscales. The English Class Anxiety and English Use Anxiety subscales composed the English Anxiety Index. Results indicated that political affiliation, time spent on the mainland and gender had no significant differences in mean scores on any of the Indexes or subscales. Level of Parental Education yielded two potentially significant results. Students whose parents have only reached an elementary-school level of education as their highest education level attained might be statistically more likely to have lower scores on the Integrative Index and the Interest in Foreign Languages subscales. Given the limited number of cases corresponding to the elementary-education level of the parental education predictor variable (n = 1), which prevented SPSS from being able to conduct post-hoc analysis, the more prudent and responsible conclusion to draw is that Puerto Rican 9th grade public school students whose parents only have an elementary school education are potentially statistically more likely to have a lower score on the Integrative Index of the Espejo de Actitudes. Overall, results indicate that Puerto Rican 9th grade public-school students have slightly positive overall levels of motivation to learn English and a neutral attitude toward the instrumental and integrative value of learning English. Their level of English anxiety in the classroom and when using English in general is equally neutral. They have a moderately positive interest in foreign languages and self-report moderate levels of effort applied to learn English. They have a slightly positive desire to learn English and a slightly favorable attitude towards Americans. They have a neutral attitude towards foreigners, but have a moderately negative affective reaction to learning English. Attitude towards foreigners was a significant predictor of affective reaction to learning English to a marked degree while overall motivation levels and overall value of learning English for integrative reasons were also significant predictors with a moderate degree of correlation. Attitudes towards Americans, overall motivation levels and overall value of learning English for integrative reasons were significant predictors of desire to learn English with a high degree of correlation while self-reported effort was a significant predictor of desire to learn English with a moderate degree of correlation. Integrative orientation, English use anxiety and the instrumental value of learning English were significant predictors of English class anxiety a high levels of correlation. The instrumental value of learning English, English class anxiety and integrative orientation were significant predictors of English use anxiety with high levels of correlation.

Handbook of Language & Ethnic Identity

Handbook of Language & Ethnic Identity PDF Author: Joshua A. Fishman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195392450
Category : Anthropological linguistics
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Get Book Here

Book Description


Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity

Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity PDF Author: Joshua Fishman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199837996
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 513

Get Book Here

Book Description
Like the first volume, The Handbook of Language and Ethnic Identity, Volume 2 is a reference work on the interconnection between language and ethnic identity. In this volume, 37 new essays provide a systematic look at different language and ethnic identity efforts, assess their relative successes and failures, and place the cases on a success-failure continuum. The reasons for these failures and successes and the linguistic, social, and political contexts involved are subtle and highly complex. Some of these factors have to do with whether the language is considered a dialect, as in the cases of Bavarian, Ebonics, and Scots (considered to be dialects of German, American English, and British English, respectively). Other factors have to do with government policy, as in the cases of Basque and Navajo. Still other factors are historical, such as the way Canaanite was supplanted in present-day Israel by another classical language-Hebrew. Although the volume offers considerable sophistication in the treatment of language, ethnicity and identity, it has been written for the non-specialized reader, whether student or layperson. The contributors are an international group of well-known scholars in a range of fields. Fishman and García provide a detailed introduction that addresses the difficulty of assessing the success or failure of a language. They also present a conclusion that integrates the data presented in the volume.

The Politics Of Language

The Politics Of Language PDF Author: Pastora Cafferty
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000304752
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

Get Book Here

Book Description
Demographers predict that by the end of the century Spanish-speaking persons will constitute the largest minority group in the United States--in this context, bilingual education must be considered a crucial issue for educators and policymakers at the state, national, and local levels. Professors Cafferty and Rivera-Martínez analyze bilingual education policies and programs, particularly as they affect the Puerto Rican child, and reach some startling conclusions. They find that these programs do not, despite the best intentions, offer the equal opportunity and social mobility that has been their purpose. While the authors attempt to neither examine nor define the general problem of bilingual education methodology, they do address the problem of educating the Puerto Rican child as one minority among many. They suggest alternatives for solving the problem and recommend specific policies for federal, state, and local governments attempting to integrate Spanish-speaking minorities into the educational process.

English Language Teaching: a Political Factor in Puerto Rico?

English Language Teaching: a Political Factor in Puerto Rico? PDF Author: Mirta Martes-Rivera
Publisher: Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 1503512673
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 42

Get Book Here

Book Description
As an educator, Mirta feels blessed and pleased because she has taught courses of English and ESL to students coming from different ethnic groups and social strata from different countries in the world. Likewise, she has conducted research and has written curricular and cross-curricular material published whether in printing or online. But mostly important, she enjoys teaching.

The Future is Now

The Future is Now PDF Author: New York (N.Y.). Board of Education. Puerto Rican Study
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Puerto Rican children
Languages : en
Pages : 40

Get Book Here

Book Description