Spanglish in Intermediate-Advanced SHL Students: Attitudes and Production

This paper is part of ITML3 http://latllab.canterbury.ac.nz/spanglish-intermediate-advanced-shl-students-attitudes-production/<br><br>Does bilingual behavior change in a Spanish as a Heritage Language (SHL) class that promotes this linguistic discourse mode as a valid language of instruction? This paper reports on the qualitative and quantitative results of 16 pre and 12 post interviews conducted at the beginning and at the end of a semester-long intermediate-advanced (fourth semester) SHL course in a large public university in the Southwest US. These interviews were conducted to explore the attitudes towards the use of bilingual mode (Spanglish, as defined by students themselves), and to examine the quantitative effects of discussing Spanglish over the course of 16 weeks in a positive light. Results indicate that, in both interviews, the majority of these students held a constructive view of Spanglish as part of their identity and communities and as a legitimate means of communication in the classroom, and that there was an increase in intrasentential and intersentential code-switches as measurable features of bilingual mode, in spite of a lack of a similar increase in word insertions. This rise in code-switching production, making use of the positive attitudes towards Spanglish as a home variety, implies the use of more Spanish and its preservation, the ultimate goal of SHL courses.<br><br>