Spanish-English Codeswitching in the Mexican and Spanish Press

Erica McClure and Montserrat MirUNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN

Spanish-English Codeswitching inthe Mexican and Spanish Press

This article examines both the form and function of codeswitching in theMexican and the Spanish press. Codeswitching is found to be more complexboth syntactically and functionally in the Mexican press than in the Spanishpress. The explanation offered for this finding is based on (1) the greatercontact that Mexico has had with an anglophone community and (2) thedifferent nature of that contact.

S ince the 1972 publication of Blom and Gumperz's seminal article oncodeswitching, numerous detailed case studies of codeswitchinghave appeared. Today the literature is replete both with proposals of

syntactic constraints on codeswitching, as well as with descriptions of itssituational and metaphorical functions. Relatively few studies, however,have been devoted to the investigation of the social, political, and economicfactors that contribute to cross-cultural variation in the form and functionof codeswitching (Gal 1987,1988; Hill 1985; Kachru 1985,1989; McClureand McClure 1988; Narty 1982; Poplack 1988; Ure 1974; Woolard 1985,1988). It is this issue that we address in the following analysis of English-Spanish codeswitching in the Mexican and Spanish press.

The work of Gal is of particular theoretical interest to the present study.Although the primary data on which Gal bases the analyses presented inher 1987 and 1988 articles are drawn from descriptions of the codeswitchingof bilingual minority groups and Spanish is the language of the majority inboth Mexico and Spain, Gal's model also appears to provide a goodexplanation for the differential patterns of codeswitching found in theMexican and Spanish press. Gal argues that differences in the codeswitch-

Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 5(l):33-50. Copyright © 1995, American AnthropologicalAssociation.

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34 Journal of Linguistic Anthropology

ing practices of bilingual ethnic groups are symbolic responses to the waysin which these ethnic communities are differentially situated within re-gions of the world capitalist system, "diverse forms of resistance to sym-bolic domination within a historical and political-economic context"(1987:637). In her 1988 article she further develops this argument, pointingout that ethnic groups have specifiable structural positions of power orsubordination in their regional economy and are also importantly affectedby their relation to world capitalist forces. Citing Wolf (1982) and Cole(1981), she goes on to state that "this larger context is crucial in shaping thenature of interactions between and within ethnic groups, the permeabilityof boundaries, the definitions and evaluations of actions and resources andthe nature of competition across boundaries" (Gal 1988:247). Then citingHill (1985:735), she notes that in a parallel way differing codeswitchingpractices can be seen as the symbolic practices of different sociopoliticalpositions.

The case of Spanish-English codeswitching in Mexico and Spain is aparticularly interesting one to investigate from the perspective developedby Gal. Superficially the situation in the two countries appears very similar.The same two languages are involved in both. In both, Spanish-Englishbilingualism is not a geographically delimited community phenomenonbut rather an individual phenomenon. In both, Spanish is not only thelanguage of the majority but also a language of prestige. In both, there areno contexts other than tourism, diplomacy, and international commerce inwhich English is necessary. Nevertheless, as Kachru (1989) has noted forthe world in general, during the last few decades English has gained inimportance as a "giver" language in Mexico, as in Spain. However, itsimpact has been different in the two countries. While in both countriesbeing bilingual in English and Spanish may be a source of pride, Valdes(1990) points out that on occasions Mexicans may take pride in not havinglearned English. That phenomenon has not been reported for Spain. Fur-thermore, although the Spanish Royal Academy may attempt to defend thepurity of the Spanish language against the onslaught of English, Mexicoseems to experience even greater urgency in this regard. In 1981 when theNational Commission for the Defense of the Spanish Language was estab-lished in Mexico to standardize the Spanish spoken there, particular con-cern was expressed to protect it in the border regions. Such a defense wasseen as important in maintaining the culture of Mexico: "El defender elidioma es salvaguardar una manera singular de entender la realidad y unaforma carcteristica de pensar y de ser. [To defend the language is tosafeguard a singular way of understanding reality and a characteristic formof thinking and being.]" (Valdes 1990:43). The different reactions to Englishcan also be seen in the different patterns of codeswitching found in Mexicoand Spain.

In this article we will examine the differences in Spanish-English code-switching in Mexican and Spanish popular news magazines. First we willbriefly describe the syntactic properties of codeswitching in the two cases.Then we will present a more extensive discussion of its runctions. We willconclude with a comparison of codeswitching in the two countries and,

' 35Spanish-English Codeswitching '

following Gal, offer an explanation of the differences based on an exami-nation of the particular social, economic, and political relationships thatMexico and Spain have with the anglophone speech community.

The Spanish data to be analyzed come from the magazine Cambio 16.Twelve issues were analyzed, two from each year from 1986 to 1991. Cambio16 was selected because it has prestige and popularity in the Spanishcommunity and also because it is "in the vanguard of Spanish linguisticinnovation" (Pratt 1986:353). Other magazines of the news, sociopolitical,or literary genre that are published in Spain employ very little or nocodeswitching to English. Cambio 16 resembles the English news magazinesTime and Newsweek in terms of thematic coverage. The Mexican data comefrom articles on topics similar to those in Cambio 16 drawn from 13 ran-domly selected issues of the 1989 through 1990 editions of the newsmagazines Proceso, Siempre, and Contenido, and the sociopolitical and liter-ary magazines Vuelta and Nexos.

Codeswitching Defined

Although the focus of the present study is the pragmatics of codeswitch-ing, in order to establish what linguistic expressions will be considered, itis necessary first to address a recurrent problem in research on codeswitch-ing: identification of codeswitches. What constitutes a minimal codeswitchis an issue that continues to create dissention. At one extreme there is theposition of Schaffer, who states that

it has been argued that the language of elements surrounding a head word,including proper concord and agreement as marked by structure words andaffixes within the phrase is a more accurate indicator of switching as opposed toborrowing. Switching would therefore seem to involve entire phrases rather thansingle words. It is not without good reason that Clyne (1967, p. 19) referred toswitching as "multiple transference." [Schaffer 1978:268]

At the other extreme, Pfaff concludes that, rather than segregating lan-guage contact phenomena, it may be advantageous to study their interplay.Thus in her tripartite classification of styles of codeswitching, she notes thatin the third type, "Spanish street talk," "switching to English is mainly forsingle nouns, verbs, adjectives and set phrases" (1975:17). Somewherebetween the extremes is a position that does not exclude the possibility ofsingle-word switches, but that seeks to distinguish them from borrowings.Generally the distinction rests on two grounds: borrowings are phonologi-cally and morphologically integrated into the borrowing language, andwithin the speech community they are accepted as bona fide elements ofand are in general use in the borrowing language. Both of these criteria are,however, slippery. With respect to phonology, Schaffer points out:

As noted by Diebold (1963) and Hasselmo (1970) among others, the phonologyof switches may spill across lexemes, especially where the switches are in doseproximity rather than having been separated by a pause. Thus, some instanceswhich researchers still wanted to classify as switches exhibited some measure of


overlap. Phonology was not a totally consistent guide to identifying switches.[Schaffer 1978:268]

In the case of written text, phonology is obviously no guide at all, but printoffers a different means of marking codeswitches. Authors can indicatewhat they believe to be the status of lexical items by setting off codeswitcheswith italics, boldface type, quotation marks, or underlining. This means ofidentifying codeswitches may be somewhat dubious, however. In thecorpus considered here, some words were set off in print although theyappear in some monolingual Spanish dictionaries. Examples are beatnik,cash flaw, dumping, hobby, jeans, mass media, and strip-tease. Converselyothers such as cash, closet, hit, hot, shopping, and script appeared with nographic marker that they were not accepted Spanish words, although theydo not commonly appear in monolingual Spanish dictionaries.

The attempt, however, to ascertain the status of a word as borrowing ora codeswitch by investigating norms of usage is also hazardous. In ques-tioning members of the same speech community about the status of alexeme, one may receive responses ranging from an indication of noawareness that it was ever not part of the language, through claims that itis a well-integrated borrowing, to statements that it is not part of thelanguage at all, the response depending on the linguistic sophistication andattitude of the informant (McClure 1972 and McClure and McClure 1977).

Clearly there is no neat algorithm for determining the status of a wordor even occasionally a phrase as codeswitch or borrowing. Indeed it seemsquite possible that for different people the same form has a different status.Nevertheless, a clear working definition can be adopted for research pur-poses. In this article we have included as codeswitches all forms set off bythe authors with italics, boldface type, underlining, or quotation marks, aswell as all forms found neither in the large Larousse (Garcia-Pelayo y Gross1972) or Porriia (Raluy Poudevida and Monterde 1982) dictionaries in thecase of the Mexican data, or in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanolain the case of the data from Spain.

Syntactic Structure of Mexican and Spanish Journalistic Codeswitches

Let us now take a brief look at the syntactic structure of the Mexicancodeswitches. Excluding names and titles, a total of 535 codeswitches werefound. Of these, as can be seen by looking at Table 1, the vast majority weresingle nouns (69 percent), a rinding in accord with other codeswitchingstudies where such switches were not excluded by definition. The nextmost frequent category consisted of adjective plus noun, but it accountedfor only 13 percent of the switches. Full sentence switches accounted for 7percent of the data, while adjectives and prepositional phrases accountedfor 5 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Collectively the above-mentionedcategories accounted for 95 percent of all switches.

In the corpus from Spain 364 switches were found. Again, as may be seenin Table 1, the largest category by far was that of single nouns, 77 percent,followed by the category adjective plus noun at 10 percent. Full sentence

Spanish-English Codeswitching 37

Table 1Syntactic structure of codeswitches

1. Noun2. Adjective + noun3. Sentence4. Adjective5. Prepositional phrase6. Other

Mexico

370 (69%)69 (13%)37 (7%)24 (5%)11 (2%)24 (5%)

Spain

279 (77%)37 (10%)4 (1%)

20 (6%)2 (1%)

22 (6%)

Note: Percentages do not add to 100 because of rounding.

switches, however, comprised only 1 percent of the data, while the catego-ries adjective and prepositional phrases comprised 6 percent and 1 percent,respectively. As in the Mexican data, the aforementioned categories ac-counted for 95 percent of all switches.

The Functions of Mexican and Spanish Journalistic Codeswitches

Researchers examining oral codeswitching in Chicano communities inthe United States have noted that it is used for a wide variety of purposes(see, for example, Elias Olivares 1976; Gumperz and Hernandez-Chavez1972; McClure 1977,1981; Valdes 1981; Valdes-Fallis 1976). Among themare the following: quotation, repetition, interjection, addressee specifica-tion, emphasis, clarification, elaboration, focus, attention attraction or re-tention, personalization versus objectivization, topic shift, and role shift.While the functions of the written codeswitching examined here overlapwith those mentioned above, there are differences. Some are simply theresult of a difference in channel—written rather than oral. Addresseespecification, role shift, and attention attraction are irrelevant in the writtenmode. Others, however, probably relate to the difference between the socialand political contexts in which Chicanos in the United States and Mexicanand Spanish journalists codeswitch.

An examination of our Mexican and Spanish corpora reveals the follow-ing reasons for switching: (1) lack of a good Spanish translation, (2) lack ofa set Spanish word or phrase, (3) greater explicitness of the English form,(4) desire to play with well-known English phrases, (5) emphasis throughrepetition, (6) simple quotation, (7) quotation to reproduce a style of speech,(8) creation of a sarcastic, satirical, or ironic tone, (9) creation of a sophisti-cated tone, and (10) creation of an erudite tone. Each of these uses isillustrated below. The examples were chosen on the basis of the authors'systematic analysis of the texts from which they were drawn. This analysisfocused on topic, purposes, and key (Hymes 1972), and the way the contentand placement of the switches within the text were related to these factors.


Lack of a Good Spanish Translation

Mexican Press:

(1) No fue eso lo que sucedi6 en los paises asidticos que empezaron como sweatshops. [Contenido, July 1990][It was not that which took place in the Asian countries which began likesweatshops.]

Spanish Press:

(2) El Bilbao, el Central y el Hispano son la punta de la lanza de las casi docientassociedades espanolas que ya estan registradas en el Penon, aunque solo uno—ElHispanoamericano—lo esta offshore, imposibilatado para operar en el interior.[Cambio 16, Jan. 9,1989][The Bilbao, the Central and the Hispano are the spearhead of the almost twohundred Spanish companies that are registered in the Rock of Gibraltar, althoughonly one—the Hispanoamerican—is registered off-shore, prevented from operat-ing in the interior.]

In example 1 the English word sweatshops has been used, and in example 2the English word off-shore. Both not only identify very specific concepts thatare crucial to the development of the articles in which they are embedded,but also immediately evoke a wider social context. Neither has a shortSpanish translation; rather, both would require extensive paraphrasing.

Lack of a Set Spanish Word or Phrase

Mexican Press:

(3) Una grieta se abri6 entre ambos, como si el dirigente negro convocara a losodiados demonios que el american way of life repudia porque representan la masdura carga de la consciencia. [Siempre, July 11,1990][A crack opened between both, as if the black director convoked the hateddemons that the American way of life repudiates because they represent the hardestburden of conscience.]

Spanish Press:

(4) . . . la continua repetici6n de los esca*ndalos por insider trading (manejo deinformation confidential)... [Cambio 16, Jan. 8,1990.][... the continuous repetition of scandals for insider trading (use of confidentialinformation)... ]

In examples 3 and 4, the phrases "American way of life" and "insidertrading" appear. Although both can easily be translated, and in fact the oneappearing in Cambia 16 is, the translations are not set phrases in Spanish asthey are in English. They do not carry the connotations of the Englishphrases.


Greater Explicitness of the English Form

Mexican Press:

(5) Casi nadie habla del encuentro sexual fugaz (one night stand). [Nexos, June 1990,Mexico City.][Almost no one speaks of the fleeting sexual encounter (one-night stand).]

Spanish Press:

(6) Se calcula que alrededor de tres millones y medio de espaftoles entretienenlas sobremesas y alimentan su morbo con las desgracias de la Pantoja o losdevaneos de la jet-set desfilan por sus paginas satinadas. [Cambio 16, Jan. 6,1986][Around three-and-a-half million Spaniards are figured to entertain table conver-sation and feed their morbidity with the misfortunes of the Pantoja or theflirtations of the jet-set who parade through their satiny pages.]

In examples 5 and 6 we find the expressions one-night stand and jet-set. Inthese cases, although there are short Spanish equivalents for the Englishforms, the English expressions are more explicit. A one-night stand is aparticular type of encuentro sexual fugaz (fleeting sexual encounter) and hasstrong negative connotations. Alta sociedad (high society) is not identical tothe jet-set. The latter conjures up images of the spoiled, idle rich disportingthemselves in the playgrounds of the world. The former is a much moreneutral term. Thus the English forms evoke much richer images than wouldtheir Spanish translations.

Play with Well-Known English Phrases

Mexican Press:

(7) Traje dcisico, corbata dasica, ademanes sobrios, Pedro Aspe sube a la tribunacon un cierto "Touch of class." [Proceso, Feb. 27,1989][Classic suit, classic tie, sober gestures, Pedro Aspe dimbs to the rostrum with acertain "touch of class."]

(8) ^Entonces a quie*n se le va a quitar ...?—That is the question.—^A los canadi-enses? [Proceso, Mar. 27,1989][Then from whom is it going to be taken ...?—That is the question.—From theCanadians?]

(9) Los amos del especta*culo—pues the show must go on siempre, pase lo quepase—han dado la pauta desde hace tiempo. [Proceso, Mar. 27,1989][The directors of the show—since the show must go on always, whatever hap-pens—have set the standard already.]

Spanish Press: (No examples.)

In examples 7 through 9, Mexican journalists play with well-known Englishphrases that carry strong cultural overtones. In (7), by using the phrase"touch of class," the writer paints a graphic picture of Mexico's finance


secretary and perhaps also refers with light irony to Aspe's U.S. academictraining and to his social background. In (8) the same writer uses thefamiliar sentence "That is the question/' from the English classic Hamlet.Finally in (9) we find a cliche from American show business. Interestinglyno examples of this type of codeswitching were found in our corpus of datafrom the Spanish press.

Emphasis through Repetition

Mexican Press:

(10) Ya no es escoger entre un mundo o varios—one world or several—sino por "unmundo o ninguno"—one world or none. [Nexos, June 1990][Already it is not a question of choosing between one world or several—one worldor several—but rather for "one world or none"—one world or none.]

Spanish Press:

(11) No es antes, sino despu£s de la guerra cuando tuvo lugar el verdadero bafiode sangre, el bloodbath que denunciaba antes de 1975 Noam Chomsky. [Cambio16, Jan. 4,1988][It is not before but after the war when the true bloodbath took place, the bloodbaththat Noam Chomsky denounced before 1975.]

In examples 10 and 11 the repetition in English of a preceding Spanishphrase emphasizes a point in a manner quite similar to that of a paraphrasein a monolingual text. Exact repetition is inappropriate in written text, buta monolingual author may underline a point by restating it in differentwords. A bilingual author has an additional resource. Instead of paraphras-ing, he may switch languages to underscore his point.

Simple Quotation

Mexican Press:

(12) Se pregunta el embajador mexicano ante la OEA, Antonio de Icaza "^Vamosa admitir que los extranjeros vengan a decirnos c6mo modemizar nuestrosprocesos electorales?" Y se responde: "Over my death [sic] body" (sobre micadaVer). [Proceso, Apr. 9,1990.][The Mexican ambassador to the OAS, Antonio de Icaza, asks himself, "Are wegoing to allow foreigners to come and tell us how to modernize our electoralprocesses?" And he answers himself: "Over my death [sic] body" (over my ca-daver).]

Spanish Press:

(13) Cuando al irse Minnelli le pregunte* que habfa dicho, repuso el oso celoso:<Vincent said ifs too damn hot>. iC6mo traducirles esta frase final y feliz? Habfadicho que hacfa mucho calor. [Cambio 26, Jan. 12,1987][When on leaving Minnelli asked him what he had said, the jealous bear re-


sponded, Vincent said it's too damn hot. How can this final, felicitous phrase betranslated? He had said that it was very hot.]

In examples 12 and 13 we see a use of codeswitching that is quite commonin bilingual communities, exact quotation in the original language. Suchquotation may merely be faithful repetition of what was said. However, itmay also be used to capture the flavor of an utterance, as in the case of thesetwo examples. In (12) a diplomat's very strong language is cited verbatim,probably to emphasize Mexico's independence from the United States andother foreign countries. In (13) the journalist even asks rhetorically how thecited English phrase could be translated and then offers a translation toshow that something is lost in translation.

Quotation to Reproduce a Style of Speech

Mexican Press:

(14) Encuentro a un mesero que vio perder en medio minuto un millon de dolaresa "dat gordo gai, di petrolero Baragan, gut gordo, gud old tairns. en toda noche,gerit? en toda noche mas of ten milionsl Di gordo. . . [Proceso, Sep. 15,1989][I encounter a waiter who saw a million dollars lost in half a minute by that fatguy, the oilman Baragan, good fat guy, good old times. The whole night, hear it? Inthe whole night more of ten millions] The fat guy. . . ]

Spanish Press:

(15) Hay induso quien asegura que dos oficiales se entrevistaron con la reinamadre y que e*sta, al escuchar lo que los militares le proponian, solo pudoresponderles, "But dear, don't do that" (pero, queridos, no hagais esto). [Cambio 16,Jan. 2,1989][There is even someone who says that two officials talked with the Queen Motherand that when she heard what the officials were trying to suggest, she could onlysay, "But dear, don't do that" (But my dears, don't do that).]

In examples 14 and 15 we see a different use of quotation, the reproductionof a style of speech to evoke a clearer picture of the individuals discussed.In (14) we see a Mexican stereotype of the language and culture of theChicano, the stigmatization of the speech thought to be characteristic of the"Pocho" or Mexican American. The article from which these passages aretaken is a broad parody not only of the manner in which Chicanos code-switch (note the use of Spanish orthography in English utterances andhighly unlikely codeswitches such as en toda noche mas often milions "In thewhole night more than ten million") but also of the celebration of one ofthe most important events in Mexican history in the tasteless atmosphereof Las Vegas. In (15) the Queen Mother is quoted, providing an example ofa British speech style that, given its context, strong disapproval of a plannedmilitary action, the journalist would appear to consider quite ineffectual.


Creation of a Sarcastic, Satirical, or Ironic Tone

Mexican Press:

(16) Just crowned like miss Universe 1989, Angela Visser, 22, from Holland, wascongratuleted by Tourism former secretary, teacher Carlos Hank Gonzalez, givenher a cheek kiss. The representative of mexican government, formal gown dress,seemingly very pleasure enjoing the show. [The orthographic and grammaticalerrors are those of the article.]. . . Asi hie—mas o menos—el happy end del certamen mundial de la belleza. Asi:en ingles y con el entusiasta aval del teacher Hank Gonzalez, diligente promotorde 'la industria de la paz y la amistad". . . Ni modo. The dream is over. [Proceso, June 1,1989][... So it went—more or less—the happy end of the world beauty contest. So: inEnglish and with the enthusiastic backing of the teacher Hank Gonzalez, diligentpromoter of "the industry of peace and friendship/'. . . That's how it is. The dream is over.]

(17) La transmision del show, of course, sera en ingles. [Proceso, May 22,1989][The transmission of the show will, of course, be in English.]

Spanish Press: (The following article is about the European EconomicCommunity.)

(18) Faltaron naranjas y verduras made in Spain para surtir a todos los tenderos.[Cambio 16, Jan. 13,1986][There were not enough oranges and vegetables made in Spain to supply all theshopkeepers.]

In examples 16 through 18 we see the use of codeswitching to create asarcastic or ironic tone. In (18), from the Spanish press, the journalistemphasizes his disapproval of Spain's economic position within the EECthrough the use of the English codeswitch "made in Spain." It is in (16) and(17), the citations from the Mexican press, however, that we see the sharpestuse of English codeswitching. Here we see the reflection of two tendenciesin the Mexican press, criticism of the U.S. way of life and resentment ofperceived U.S. ascription of subordinate status to Mexico and Mexicans.Both are often associated with the satirical use of English. (16) and (17)contain excerpts from a series of articles on the 1989 Miss Universe Contestheld in Cancun, Mexico. By beginning one of his articles with the long,fractured English introduction reproduced in (16) and interspersing En-glish throughout both articles, the journalist reinforces the sarcastic tone inwhich he criticizes not only the "teacher" Hank Gonzalez's decision topromote tourism through subsidizing the Miss Universe contest but alsothe arrogance of the American organizers of the contest, who excludedMexican journalists from many of the events of a contest being held in theirown country. Resentment of their casual assumption that broadcastingwould be in English is shown in (17). "La transmisi6n del show, of course,serf en ingles." [The broadcast of the show . . . will be in English.] In (16)the use of the phrase "happy end" contributes to the satirical tone estab-

Spanish-English Codeswitching

lished by the phrase "diligent promoter of the industry of peace andfriendship" and the juxtaposition of the Mexican cliche* "Ni modo" [Thaf show it is; nothing can be done] with the English cliche "The dream is over."

Creation of a Sophisticated Tone

Mexican Press:

(19) (ya se sabe: refacciones para electrodomesticos en Articulo 123, aparatos paraaudio y video en Republica de El Salvador, materiales ortop&iicos en Motolinia,and so on)... [Nexos, June 1990][(It's already known: parts for home appliances in Articulo 123, audio and videoplayers in the Republic of El Salvador, orthopedic materials in Motolinia, and soon)...]

Spanish Press:

(20) . . . de modo que no hay prisas . . . una vez firma el memorandum of under-standing. [Cambio 26, Jan. 6,1986][... so there is no hurry... once the memorandum of understanding is signed.]

In examples 19 and 20, we see the use of codeswitching simply to create atone of sophistication. In these passages, which specific words are inEnglish does not seem to be important. What is important is simply the factthat English is used. And so on and memorandum of understanding both havegood Spanish translations. In fact, in the case of memorandum of under-standing, a strange expression in English, the Spanish word acuerdo wouldhave been much clearer.

Creation of an Erudite Tone

Mexican Press:

(21) No creo que haya quien pueda dearie Here and here did Mexico help me. [Nexos,June 1990][I do not believe that there is anyone who can tell him, Here and here did Mexicohelp me.]

Spanish Press: (No examples.)

In example 21 a phrase employing a syntactic structure marked as belong-ing to the literary register of English is used. It is not a set phrase in English,nor does it contain elements with specific connotative meanings not cap-tured by Spanish equivalents. In fact, its meaning could have been con-veyed equally as well and succinctly in Spanish. The phrase is not aquotation, nor does it recreate a speech style associated with a particularsocial group. No sarcasm or irony appears to be intended. The phraseappears to have been used simply to contribute to the erudite tone of thearticle. Such usage was found only in our Mexican data.


Factors Influencing Patterns of Codeswitching in Mexico and Spain

While English codeswitches in the Spanish and Mexican press overlapsubstantially in both form and function, there are important differences.There was a substantially higher percentage of syntactically complex code-switches (more than single nouns) in the corpus of data from the Mexicanpress than in that from Spain. There was also more functional diversity inthe Mexican data. It is true that in both countries the greatest number ofcodeswitches occur because of lack of a good translation (particularly ofscientific, technological, and commercial terminology). In both, code-switching occurs for exact quotation, to reproduce a style of speech, or tocreate a sophisticated tone or for ironic or satirical purposes. Ironic orsatirical codeswitching, however, both is more common and also seems*sharper and more pointed in the Mexican press than in the Spanish press.Furthermore it was only in the Mexican press that examples of play withwell-known English phrases and the use of English to create an erudite tonewere found. It is true that the latter usage was found only in the Mexicanmagazines Vuelta and Nexos, whose articles tend to have a more scholarlytone than that usually found in the Spanish magazine Cambio 16; however,Spanish magazines that are more directly comparable to Vuelta and Nexos—for example, Clave—do not codeswitch to English at all.

To account for the different patterns of codeswitching in the Mexican andSpanish press, we must, following Gal, turn to a historical examination ofthe very different sociopolitical and economic positions of Mexico andSpain in the world order, with particular emphasis on their relations withthe anglophone speech community. If we look at Spain's relationship withthe English-speaking community we see a much less contradictory picturethan that which obtains in the case of Mexico. Spain does not have the closegeographical proximity with an English-speaking country that Mexico has.Neither the United States nor England exercises economic, political, orcultural hegemony over Spain. England's days of colonial hegemony areover, and Spain too was a colonial power, albeit one who lost its influencein earlier days. Since the expulsion of the Moors in the 15th century, Spainhas not experienced the foreign domination that Mexico has suffered.

Today Spain is not classified as a developing country, as is Mexico, butrather as a member of the OECD. In 1987 Spain was assigned the prestigiousroles of host of the 1992 Summer Olympic Games and host of the 1992World Fair. Since 1986 she has been a full member of the EuropeanCommunity. Her most important trading partners are France and Ger-many. In 1989 they accounted for 30 percent of her exports and 27 percentof her imports. The United States and the United Kingdom together ac-counted for only 18 percent of both her imports and exports (Price Water-house 1990).

Mexico, in contrast to Spain, is a country whose history has been markedby its domination by other countries. First it was colonized by Spain; thenit fell into the sphere of influence of the United States. Its centuries ofcolonial subjugation to Spain left as one legacy the national language,Spanish. The 2000-mile border that it shares with the United States has


made it particularly vulnerable to the economic, political, and culturalhegemony that this country has exercised throughout Latin America formore than a century. Mexico's economy is heavily dependent on that of theUnited States. According to the Agenda Estadistica 1990 of the InstitutoNacional de Estadistica, Geografia e Informatica, in 1989,69.5 percent ofMexico's exports went to the United States, where they constituted lessthan 5 percent of the total imports, and 61.9 percent of its imports camefrom the United States. The extremely high proportion of Mexico's totalimports that comes from the United States is particularly important sincePhilibert (1990) suggests that, when members of one society import goodsfrom another, they are also importing cultural signifiers that necessarilylead to a self-inflicted cultural subjugation. As Clarke et al. state:

A hegemonic cultural order tries to frame all competing definitions of the worldwithin its range. It provides the horizon of thought and action within whichconflicts are fought through, appropriated . . . obscured . . . or contained. Ahegemonic order prescribes, not the specific content of ideas, but the limits withinwhich ideas and conflicts move and are resolved. [1976:39]

Thus Mexicans prefer to buy American rather than Mexican products,stating that they are of higher quality; follow American fads in music,dance, TV, movies, and even schools of self-defense; reject "fiesta time" (thetraditional daily work hours that include a long break for the midday meal);and embrace consumerism. The preference for what is foreign and rejectionof what is native is so prevalent within the culture that there is a specialterm in Mexican Spanish to describe it, malinchismo* and contemporarysociopolitical folksongs have been written to decry it.

But just as Mexicans accept American cultural hegemony on the onehand, on the other, remembering a long history of often violent Americaninterference in Mexico, they distrust America and wish to distance them-selves from it. Alan Riding, a correspondent who has worked in LatinAmerica since 1971 and who was the head of the Mexico Gty office of theNew York Times for six years, explains this attitude in his book, DistantNeighbors. A Portrait of the Mexicans (1985). In a chapter whose title is takenfrom a comment often attributed to Porfirio Dias and frequently cited byMexicans ("Pobre Mexico, tan lejos de EH6s y tan cerca de los EstadosUnidos" [Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States]),Riding states:

Contiguity with the United States has proved a permanent psychological trauma.Mexico cannot come to terms with having lost half of its territory to the UnitedStates, with Washington's frequent meddling in its political affairs, with the US.hold on its economy and with growing cultural penetration by the American wayof life. It is also powerless to prevent these interventions from taking place, andis even occasionally hurt by measures adopted in Washington that did not haveMexico in mind. And it has failed to persuade Washington to give it specialattention. Intentionally or not, Mexico has been the target of American disdainand neglect and, above all, a victim of the pervasive inequality of the relationship.


The emotional prism of defeat and resentment through which Mexico viewsevery bilateral problem is not simply the legacy of unpardoned injustices fromthe past. Contemporary problems—migration, trade, energy and credits—alsoinvolve the clash of conflicting national interests, with Mexico approaching thebargaining table deeply sensitive to its enormous dependence on Americancredit, American investment American tourists and even American food. Goodfaith alone could not eliminate these contradictions, but underlying tensions arekept alive by Mexico's expectation that it will be treated unfairly. Its worst fearsare confirmed with sufficient regularity for relations to remain clouded bysuspicion and distrust. As the local saying goes: "What would we do without thegringos? But we must never give them thanks." Mexico must depend—butcannot rely—on its neighbor. [Riding 1985:316-317]

In sum, as the Mexican Nobel laureate Octavio Paz states in his book,Tiempo Nublado:

The idea that the people of Mexico have of the United States is contradictory,passionate and impervious to criticism, more than an idea it is a mythic image.The same thing can be said of the vision held by our intellectuals and writers.[1985:140, our translation]

The contradictory emotions and ideas that Mexicans have with respectto the United states are clearly reflected in their attitudes and practices withrespect to the English language. English is widely taught in the junior highschools and high schools in Mexico but rarely mastered in any but theprivate schools. However, many young people decide after leaving schoolthat knowledge of English will be economically advantageous to them andstudy it by themselves or in private English-language schools. Further-more, owing to the long, porous border with the United States and lack ofemployment in Mexico many Mexicans have spent some time in the UnitedStates and have acquired some knowledge of English there. In Kachru'sterms (1985) Mexico is clearly a member of the Expanding Circle," thegroup of countries in which English is considered the primary foreignlanguage. Nevertheless, although English loan words continue to permeateMexican Spanish and many companies, stores, and restaurants select En-glish names, commissions are formed to protect the national language fromthis influence and local laws are passed in communities such as San MiguelDe Allende, a tourist center in central Mexico, banning monolingual En-glish advertising.

Mexican ambivalence to the United States and so to English also explainsthe codeswitching patterns described above. As we have seen, codeswitch-ing to English is more frequent and functionally richer than in the Spanishpress. This difference probably simply reflects the fact that Mexico hasmore contact with English than does Spain and that as a member of theExpanding Circle accords English a more important role as a marker ofsophistication and erudition than does Spain. But the fact that the Mexicanpress makes more frequent and sharper use of codeswitching to indicateirony, satire, and ridicule reflects the other aspect of Mexico's contradictoryand "passionate" attitude toward the United States, that of rejection.


Although English is an important foreign language in Spain, it is not theprimary foreign language. Since Spain is a member of the European Eco-nomic Community and a major European tourist destination, other majorEuropean languages also play important roles. Thus Spain is probably notas fully integrated into the Expanding Circle as is Mexico. Consequently itis not surprising that codeswitching to English is not as frequent or func-tionally diverse in the Spanish as in the Mexican press. The fact thatcodeswitching to mark irony, satire, and ridicule is also less frequentprobably simply reflects the fact that Spain is not subject to the sametensions and conflicts with any country of the English-speaking world thatMexico suffers with the United States. As a consequence, codeswitching inthe Spanish press does not reflect the same sort of national angst.

Conclusion

In this article we have examined both the form and function of code-switching in the Mexican and Spanish press, noting that the codeswitchingto be found in the Mexican press is both syntactically and functionally morecomplex than that to be found in the Spanish press. We have offered anexplanation for these differences based both on the greater contact thatMexico has had with an anglophone community and the very differenteconomic, political, and cultural nature of that contact. Spain's relationshipwith the anglophone community has been relatively egalitarian. Mexico'srelationship with its anglophone neighbor has been characterized by sub-ordination. The cultural hegemony that the United States has exercisedover Mexico has engendered the contradictory responses of emulation andrejection. The former is reflected in the play with well-known Englishphrases and the use of English to create an erudite tone that are both foundin the Mexican, but not the Spanish, data analyzed here. The latter isreflected in the fact that codeswitching to English for ironical or satiricalpurposes is both more common and more pointed in the Mexican than inthe Spanish data.

Although there is greater diversity in both the form and function ofcodeswitching in the Mexican press than in the Spanish press, not even inthe former did we find the richness of form and function repeatedlydescribed in studies of Spanish-English codeswitching in Chicano commu-nities. Since the studies of Chicano codeswitching have been based onconversational data while the present study is based on two corpora takenfrom the press, some of these differences are probably simply due todifferences in channel, genre, and degree of monitoring. However, wepropose that Chicano codeswitching also differs from codeswitching inMexico and Spain both because the Chicano community has much greatercontact with English and also because the Chicano community, as a subor-dinated minority in a society whose mainstream speaks English, is subjectto even greater hegemony by the anglophone community than is Mexico.Future research on codeswitching in the Chicano press will enable us totest this hypothesis.


Notes

Acknowledgments. Previous versions of this article were presented at the FifthAnnual International Conference on Pragmatics and Language Learning and at the1993 SCOLAS meetings at Texas A&M.

1. The term malinchismo is derived from the name of Hernando Cortez's indige-nous translator and concubine, la Malinche. La Malinche has been accused ofbetraying her people to the Spanish conquistador despite the fact that the peoplewhom she "betrayed" were not those of her own ethnic group but rather those whohad enslaved her.

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Spanish-English Codeswitching in the Mexican and Spanish Press

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