Sociolinguistics Symposium 19
Freie Universität Berlin | August 21-24, 2012
Programme: accepted abstracts
Abstract ID: 387
Part of Session 131: Latino Social networks and the city (Other abstracts in this session)
Latino is not Spaniard: social production of latinoidentities between young people in Barcelona.
Authors: CORONA, VICTOR (1); UNAMUNO, VIRGINIA (2)
Submitted by: Corona, Víctor (UAB, Spain)
Recent studies on educational results in Catalonia show that Latino youth have the highest dropout rates in secondary education (Serra & Palaudàrias, 2010). While a multitude of reasons may explain these results, the discourse of teachers and that of the media suggest that they are related to their socialization among peers, specially, to their participation in gang culture (Corona& Unamuno 2008; Patiño & Martin Rojo 2007; Patiño 2008).
In this paper we explore aspects of youth Latino socialization in Barcelona based on the analysis of classroom interactions, interviews and conversations among peers. Fieldwork for this study took place in two secondary schools in Barcelona, between 2006 and 2010. Data collection methods included ethnographic observation, audio-recorded interviews, and audio or video-recording of naturally occurring interaction in school and community environments.
We consider the ways in which young people appropriate different varieties of Spanish and some Catalan verbal forms in the public production of Latino identity; the role of the discursive genres (Bakhtin, 1986; Pujolar, 2001) that bring about this production; and the symbolic relationships between Latino, masculinity and anti-school culture (Willis, 1977), which we consider to be explanatory of the educational processes in which the Latino youth of our study take part.
These data will also allow us to review some concepts of contemporary sociolinguistics, such as emerging varieties (Hewitt, 1986; Bailey, 2001), global-speaking communities (Harris, 2006) and processes of transterritorialization (Blommaert, 2010), in order to problematize the essentialist view of identity generally deployed to explain school experiences of young Latinos in Spain.
References:
Bailey, B. (2001). The Language of Multiple Identities among Dominican Americans.Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 10(2): 190-22
Bakhtin, M. M. (1986). The Problem of Speech Genres: Speech genres and other late essays. Trans. McGee, V. W. Eds. Emerson, C. &Holquist, M. Austin: University of Texas Press, 62-102.
Blommaert, J. (2010). The sociolinguistics of globalization. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Corona, Víctor& Unamuno, Virginia (2008). Reflexión, conciencia e ideologíalingüísticas en el discurso de jóvenes latinoamericanos. Textos de Didáctica de la Lengua y la Literatura, 49, 48-56.
Corona, Víctor (2010) Globalización, Identidades y escuela: “lo latino” en Barcelona. En: Guash, O. & M. Milian (eds) L’educació lingüística i literària en entorns multilingües, Servei de Publicacions. UniversitatAutònoma de Barcelona, 315-330.
Harris, R. (2006). New ethnicities and language use. Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan.
Hewitt, R. (1986). White Talk Black Talk. Inter-racial friendship and communication amongst adolescents. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
Patiño, A. (2008). La construcción discursiva del fracaso escolar: conflictos en las aulas, el caso de un centro escolar multicultural de Madrid. Tesis inédita. Madrid: Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Patiño, A. Martín-Rojo, L. (2007). Bandas latinas: de la criminalización a la reivindicación. In: Bañon, A. (ed.) Discurso periodístico y procesos migratorios. Donostia: Gak@a liburuak, 81-116.
Pujolar, J. (2001). Gender, heteroglossia and power: A sociolinguistic study of youth culture. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Serra, C. & Palaudàrias (2010).Continuar o abandonar. L'alumnat estranger a l'educació secundària. Barcelona: Col·lecció: Informes Breus Fundació Jaume Bofill.
Willis, P. (1977). Learning to Labour: How working class kids get working class jobs, Farnborough: Saxon House.