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In:Interdisciplinary Approaches to Romance Linguistics: In honor of Barbara E. Bullock and Almeida Jacqueline Toribio
Edited by Mark Amengual and Amanda Dalola
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 45] 2025
► pp. 240–262

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Chapter 10
No es correcto y me da mucha risa

The intersection of language attitudes and language mixing

 | University at Albany, SUNY
Published online: 2 September 2025
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.45.10law
Abstract
The current work examines language mixing production and attitudes thereof among four generations of Mexican bilinguals living in Austin. Data comprised English lexical borrowings and code-switches (the lexical variables) extracted from sociolinguistic interviews, and qualitative responses regarding perceptions of language mixing. Quantification consisted of mean frequencies for each lexical variable across generations, Tukey HSD tests and Chi-squared analysis. While neither lexical variable differed between generations (p > 0.05), those with negative attitudes produced more lexical borrowings than those with neutral or positive perceptions (p = 0.008 and p = 0.040). Qualitative data bolstered these findings, revealing prescriptivist rhetoric among Generation 0 participants and widespread linguistic insecurity among Generations 1 to 3, which has implications for language maintenance.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Language mixing
    • 2.2Language ideologies and language-mixing
  • 3.The study
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Collection of tokens
    • 3.3Lone lexical items
    • 3.4Multi-item insertions
    • 3.5Methods of data analysis
    • 3.6Qualitative measures
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Quantitative data for lone lexical items and multi-item insertions
    • 4.2The intersection of production and perceptions of language mixing
      • 4.2.1Chi-square results
      • 4.2.2Qualitative results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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