Thus, language code-switching starts in the second generation, where both educational and professional opportunities are increasingly attainable, and accelerates within the third-generation, strengthening cultural assimilation tendencies. Last year, we wrote about the importance of segmenting Hispanic audiences in transition subgroups. We concluded that marketers might choose to focus on Spanish-only campaigns for the Hispanic-dominant consumers and English-only campaigns for the English-dominant.
The new challenge marketers face with this highly acculturated group is that it acts as a gatekeeper to older generations and determines whether the content e. Concerning relevancy and usefulness, Alvarez et al.
Hispanic population requires more than simply using Spanish-language media or in-store communications that emphasize Hispanic values.
Such a marketing campaign likely appeals to all Hispanics, but the communication will reach only about one-half of the Hispanic market… Mail offerings, brochures, and even websites should offer to the bilingual consumer the opportunity to choose their language of preference.
Bilingual Hispanics can toggle between Spanish and English, thus changing the dynamics of Hispanic marketing. We have identified five Hispanic marketing trends that have shifted in response to language code-switching, generational groups, and acculturation levels.
Language code-switching is more than knowing which phrases to script into the messaging for a Hispanic marketing campaign. Language is an integral part of Hispanic culture and reflects a broad spectrum of communities.
Demographic factors like location, immigration status, education level, household income, and psychographic factors like lifestyle, beliefs, and values must also be considered if marketers are to create campaigns that resonate with this consumer and incent them to take the desired actions.
For instance, regardless of how much a new popular smartphone ad campaign might appeal to different demographics on a cultural level, it still might be irrelevant if the price range is outside their purchasing power. Likewise, low-income multigenerational households will only be drawn to products and services that address their basic needs. For these reasons and more, cultural research makes a difference , and resulting insights validate multicultural marketing initiatives.
Content written in partnership with The Translation Team. There are many theories in existence and as Cantone mentions in her study of code switching in bilingual children; it continues to be a contentious subject among linguists:.
Most of the proposed constraints have been widely debated in the last 25 years, ending up in ruling out almost all proposals. It is nonetheless important to introduce them, since they are crucial for the discussion of the empirical data, and also because they show how code-switching can be analyzed from a grammatical perspective. Finally, I wish to specifically address the term Spanglish, its different varieties and what can be incorporated under this definition nowadays.
In summary of this chapter I will illustrate the use of Spanglish, that is to say Spanish-English code switching, by way of a current example: the bilingual population of Gibraltar. In a day and age in which the number of bilinguals and bilingual communities is ever increasing, this is a subject matter that will only grow in its importance and relevance to the study of languages as a whole. It is with this in mind, that I write my paper. Before taking a closer look at the main theories pertaining to the grammatical constraints of code switching hereafter CS , it is necessary to define what exactly is to be understood by CS in this particular paper.
The following definitions are suggested by some of the foremost authors on the subject and, in my opinion, give a solid, well-rounded explanation of the term. Cantone The final definition to which I wish to refer is that of Meisel which I find, personally, the most accurate, as it incorporates the language competence of the speaker into the definition which I consider to be of notable importance.
He states that:. Code-switching is the ability to select the language according to the interlocutor, the situational context, the topic of conversation, and so forth, and to change languages within an interactional sequence in accordance with sociolinguistic rules and without violating specific grammatical constraints. Cantone Furthermore, this definition supposes that code-switching is constrained by grammatical rules.
Firstly, I think it is worth giving a brief explanation of some of the other relevant language contact phenomena that exist alongside CS and which also have been referred to as instances of Spanglish, in order to gain a better understanding of how we are to best differentiate between the various phenomena. One of the more difficult aspects of language contact research is the ability to clearly distinguish between the different phenomena, which in many cases appear to have similar characteristics.
Alongside CS, it is also worth familiarising oneself with the term lexical borrowing, which can be sub-divided into two categories: loan words and loan translations. By way of distinction Gumperz claims that:. Borrowing can be defined as the introduction of single words or short, frozen, idiomatic phrases from one variety into the other. The items in question are incorporated into the grammatical system of the borrowing language. They are treated as part of its lexicon, take on its morphological characteristics and enter into its syntactic structures.
Code switching, by contrast, relies on the meaningful juxtaposition of what speakers must consciously or subconsciously process as strings formed according to the internal rules of two distinct grammatical systems.
Within the parameters of lexical borrowing, as mentioned above, fall the categories of loan words and loan translations or calques. The question is, where does one draw the line between the two?
Likewise, marketers need to consider whether their product or service was introduced to Hispanic consumers in Spanish or English, as vocabulary in Spanish may have more of an emotional appeal to Hispanic consumers who grew up with these products in their country of origin.
I try to only speak English or only speak in Spanish. I may revert to using a word in Spanish sometimes because there are some words that carry more weight in Spanish than they do in English.
Lastly, marketers should be aware of the subtle uses of code-switching, and under what circumstances do bilingual speakers switch from one language to another.
Bazan-Figueras, P. The Future of Spanglish: Global or Tribal?. Perspectives on Global Development and Technology. Casielles-Suarez, E. Delvin, T. Babbel Magazine. Korzenny, F. Routledge, p Nordquist, R.
0コメント