Spanglish as Identity Marker in So Far From God by Ana Castillo

Abstract

In the United States Spanish and English have lived side by side for a long time. As a result, in some situations these two languages have become intertwined and created a brand new language, commonly known as Spanglish. In a more and more globalized world, language contacts are increasing and producing mixed code languages: Spanglish is only one example of them.

Using the novel So Far From God by Ana Castillo as primary material, this research will describe what Spanglish is and explore its linguistic mechanisms. Moreover, it will explain who the speakers of this language are, in which situations they speak it and why. The main concept that will be used in the research is code switching, which means using words belonging to two or more languages in the same sentence. Since the study material is a novel, the code switching phenomenon will be treated as literary representation of reality, not actual reality.

This study has some limitations. Being the author of So Far From God and the novel’s characters of Mexican origin, only the Mexican type of Spanglish, also known as Chicano, was studied.