Sample Based On The Origin Of The Chicano English Language (Essay Sample)

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Chicano English
Chicano English refers to English that is learned as a second language mainly by people with a Mexican American origin and also the English is spoken as a first language by people with an American Mexican heritage. This type of English came as a result of interaction between the Mexicans and Americans. There are however a number of myths surrounding Chicano English.one is that it is an incorrect type of grammar. Others view it as Spanglish. That is not all, some say it is a dialect used by drug dealers and gang members and that Latinos of the middle class do not use it. Lastly, it is used by people who have Spanish as their first language. This is however not true (Spears et al.,2014). In this paper, I will discuss some of the linguistic features of Chicano English such as phonology, syntax and many more.
Phonology is a major feature to consider. Chicano English has some unique features as compared to American English. It has some similar features to Mexican Spanish but it would be wrong to equate it to the language of a second learner of English because most of Chicano speakers are native language speakers (Konopka et al.,2008). Some of the features include the elimination of consonants at the end of short words such as The word kept is pronounced without consonant t at the end. There is also the aspect of substituting the consonant v with f such as in saving which is pronounced as safe and vice versa. Lastly, there is devoicing the final consonant z such as in buzz = /bʌz/ → /bʌs/.
Secondly, we have prosody. Chicano is said to have a similar melody and rhythm with American English and also a similar syllable stress pattern with Spanish. Chicano speakers tend to contract /ɑ/ and /ə/ as well as have no place for the phonetic /x/. They also maintain a complete difference between /ɛ/ and /æ/. In the case of speakers with Spanish as their first language, /ə/ is a substitute for /a/. They also use the phonetic /x/. Additionally, /ɛ/ and /æ/ are interchangeable for /æ/.
Syntax refers to the arrangement and disarrangement of words into sentences and clauses with meaning (Amberg et al.,2009). Chicano has a unique syntactical model. Firstly, the pronunciation of article ‘the’. It is similar regardless of whether the following word starts with a consonant or a vowel. Additionally, in making plural the marker /s/ is dropped such as in the plural buses is pronounced as /bʌs/. On top of that, the negating word not does not have to be used with until. There is also the omission of ‘to be'. For example, instead of saying this is a car in CE it is this a car. CE employs multiple negatives. An example is I don’t know no preachers. The topic of a clause does not have to be at the start of the clause. Take an example; my dad he&r...