Abstract
Code-switching—the alternative use of two or more languages—in natural speech production has traditionally been stigmatized and attributed to illiteracy and/or poor linguistic competence earning derogatory labels like “Spanglish” or “Tex-Mex.”1 However, the burst of growth in bilingual literature in the United States in the last few decades seems to indicate that mixing languages in writing (especially in literature) has been legitimized to a certain extent. As Aparicio (1994) claims, “while some prescriptive linguists, editors, and authorities in education would judge the interference of Spanish and English as a deficit, a postmodern and transcreative approach would validate it as a positively creative innovation in literature” (797). This authentication process could be attested when Dominican-American writer Junot Díaz was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for a novel written in “a sort of streetwise brand of Spanglish” according to the critics.2
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References
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Corpus Texts
Alurista. Floricanto en Aztlán. Los Angeles, CA: Chicano Cultural Center, UCLA, 1971. Print.
Alurista. Z Eros. Tempe, AZ: Bilingual Press/Editorial Bilingüe, 1995. Print.
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Valdez, L. El Teatro Campesino. San Juan Bautista, CA: Cucaracha Publications, 1971. Print.
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© 2013 Imelda Martín-Junquera
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Montes-Alcalá, C. (2013). Writing on the Border: English y español también. In: Martín-Junquera, I. (eds) Landscapes of Writing in Chicano Literature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353450_19
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137353450_19
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