This thesis focuses on the profound influence which the steady influx of Cuban immigrants had on language and society in Miami. This tract explores how Cubans completely changed the city and how it arose that Spanish or even Spanglish, a mix of English and Spanish, started to dominate in Miami. For this purpose, the different waves of Cuban immigration and their characteristics are discussed, including the reasons for this mass exodus. The Cuban face of Miami is presented by giving information on the newcomers’ geographic distribution and demographic profile as well as on the economic and political influence they exert. This thesis also shows how the immigration of Spanish speakers transformed Miami into a bilingual city. It concentrates on bilingualism in general, the bilingual policy, bilingual schooling and the economic advantages of bilingualism there and critically examines Cuban language choice. The main section of this work is dedicated to the language contact phenomenon Spanglish and its two principal aspects, code-switching and borrowing. The different code-switching types and the constraints they are subject to are analyzed before covering the various forms of borrowing, including the borrowing of English syntactical structures. Finally, the commercial success of Spanglish in literature, the press, on TV and the radio as well as in the music business and advertising industry is considered. This thesis also provides a glossary of Cuban American Spanglish terms and 50 interviews with resident Miami Cubans.
351 pp., 27 fig.
Table of Contents
0 Objectives 5
1 The Cubans in Miami 8
1.1 Relations U.S.A.-Cuba 9
1.2 History of Cuban immigration to Miami 12
1.2.1 Immigration before 1959 14
1.2.2 The Golden Exiles 16
1.2.3 Operation Pedro Pan 20
1.2.4 The Freedom Flights 24
1.2.5 The Mariel Boatlift 27
1.2.5.1 El diálogo 27
1.2.5.2 The Peruvian Embassy Incident 29
1.2.5.3 Mariel Boatlift 29
1.2.6 The rafters 33
1.2.7 The Elián González case 35
1.2.8 Current immigration situation 37
1.3 Political and economic reasons for the emigration 38
1.3.1 The Revolution of 1959 39
1.3.2 Political repression 41
1.3.3 The Special Period 43
1.4 The Cuban face of Miami 44
1.4.1 Geographic distribution and demographic profile 44
1.4.2 Cuban presence in the cityscape 47
1.4.3 Cuban enterprise and economic success 50
1.4.4 Political influence and Cuban exile organizations 53
1.4.5 The Cuban American Dream: Gloria Estefan, Andy García 57
1.4.6 The Cuban identity ‘la cubanidad’ 59
2 Miami – A bilingual city 61
2.1. Bilingualism 63
2.2 Bilingual policy and the “English Only Movement” 65
2.3 Bilingual schooling: Miami’s pioneering experience 67
2.4 Economic advantages of bilingualism 70
2.5 Miami Cubans and language 72
2.5.1 Language attitudes towards Spanish and English 73
2.5.2 Language choice 75
2.5.2.1 Language choice according to environment 76
2.5.2.2 Language choice with regard to the media 80
3 The Phenomenon of Spanglish 83
3.1 A definition of Spanglish 84
3.2 Code-switching 87
3.2.1 Definition and research on code-switching 88
3.2.2 Characteristics of code-switching 93
3.2.3 Different code-switching types 99
3.2.3.1 Extrasentential code-switching 99
3.2.3.2 Emblematic code-switching 101
3.2.3.3 Intrasentential code-switching 104
3.2.4 Constraints on code-switching 108
3.2.4.1 Free morpheme constraint 109
3.2.4.1 Equivalence constraint 111
3.2.5 Functions of code-switching 114
3.3 Borrowing 118
3.3.1 Loanwords 120
3.3.1.1 Non-adapted loanwords 121
3.3.1.2 Adapted loanwords 124
3.3.2 Loanblends 125
3.3.2.1 Hybrids 125
3.3.2.2 Hybrid compounds 126
3.3.3 Loanshifts 128
3.3.3.1 Semantic loans 128
3.3.3.2 Loan translations 132
3.3.4 Hybrid creations 134
3.3.5 Borrowing of verbs 136
3.3.6 Borrowing of nouns 140
3.3.6.1 Gender assignment 143
3.3.6.2 Formation of plural 147
3.3.7 Borrowing of English syntactical structures 149
3.3.7.1 Articles 150
3.3.7.2 Prepositions 151
3.3.7.3 Gerundio 157
3.3.7.4 Word order 158
3.3.8 Spanish loanwords in English 160
3.4 Spanglish as a commercial success 163
3.4.1 Spanglish in literature 164
3.4.2 Spanglish in the press 167
3.4.3 Spanglish on television 171
3.4.4 Spanglish on the radio 175
3.4.5 Spanglish music 176
3.4.6 Spanglish in advertising 179
3.5 Perspectives on Spanglis 185
4 Conclusion 191
5 Sources 194
5.1 Literature 194
5.2 Internet sources 201
5.3 Table of images 207
6 Spanglish Glossary 209
7 Interviews with Cubans 230