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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 861

Part of Session 158: Language biographies and migration experiences in urban contexts (Other abstracts in this session)

Language Narratives and the Construction of Transfronterizo Identities at the San Diego-Tijuana Border

Authors: Relano-Pastor, Ana M.
Submitted by: Relano-Pastor, Ana M. (University of Castilla-La Mancha, Spain)

This presentation focuses on language narratives of a group of transfronterizo students who cross the San Diego-Tijuana border to attend private and public schools in San Diego (California). It analyzes how transfronterizo students construct local notions associated to language-s, language use and speakers, and the organization of everyday linguistic practices in stories related to language events as part of their border-crossing experience. In multilingual, transnational settings, narratives of language are complexly intertwined to ideologies of language and notions of power and identity (Bailey 2002; Garrett & Baquedano-Lopez 2002; De Fina 2003; Relaño Pastor 2008; Schieffelin, Woolard, & Kroskrity 1998; Zentella forthcoming). In addition, language ideologies are manifested in individuals’ discourse, constructing values and beliefs at state, institutional, national and global levels (Blackledge 2008). In the border space these transfronterizo students navigate everyday, linguistic practices not only shape their social identities as border-crossers, but these are also transformed by the multiple interactions with diverse social networks in the schools they attend (e.g. trolos, sociales, fresas, cholos, nacos, pochos, chicanos, Mexicanos, Mexicano Americanos, Tijuanenses, and Mexicanos from the rancho, among others – Relaño Pastor 2007-). Data consists of 40 individually tape recorded interviews with border-crossing university students who attended schools in San Diego. The presentation analyzes how transfronterizo students make sense of who they are in narratives of language experiences at the border. Results indicate the fluidity of language ideologies at the border and the emergence of a transforming border identity that challenges exclusive ethnic and cultural identifications with either Mexican or Mexican-descent groups on the San Diego-Tijuana border.

References:

Bailey, B. 2002. Language, race, and negotiation of identity: A study of Dominican Americans. New York: LFB Scholarly Publications.

Blackledge, A. 2008. Language ecology and language ideology. In Encyclopedia of Language and Education, ed. Creese, A., P. Martin, & N. Hornberger, 27-40, Vol. 9, Ecology of Language. New York: Springer.

De Fina, Anna. 2003. Identity in narrative. A study of immigrant discourse. John Benjamins.

Garret, P. & P. Baquedano-López. 2002. Language socialization: Reproduction and continuity, transformation and change. Annual Review of Anthropology 31: 339-61.

Relaño Pastor A. M. 2007. On Border Identities: Transfronterizo Students in San Diego. Diskurs Kindheits-und Jugendforschung (Journal of Childhood and Adolescence), 3-2007, 263-277. The German Youth Institute: Leverkunsen, Germany.

Relaño Pastor, A. M. 2008. Competing Language Ideologies in a Bilingual/Bicultural After-School Program in Southern California. Journal of Latinos and Education 7(1): 4-24.

Woolard, K. A., & B. B. Schieffelin. 1994. Language ideology. Annual Review in Anthropology 23: 55–82.

Zentella, Ana Celia (forthcoming). Bilinguals and Borders: California’s Transfronteriz@s and Competing Constructions of Bilingualism. In Vox California: Cultural Meanings of Linguistic Diversity, H. Samy Alim, Patricia Baquedano-López, Mary Bucholtz, and Dolores Inés Casillas, editors. University of California Press.