Title:

Title: Register and Style Variation in Speakers of Spanish as a Heritage and as a Second Language

Author: Ana Sánchez Muñoz

Email: ana.sanchezmunoz@csun.edu

Degree Awarded: University of Southern California, Department of Linguistics

Degree Date: 2007

Linguistic Subfield:             Sociolinguistics
Subject Languages:        English, Spanish
Dissertation Chair:             Dr. Carmen Silva-Corvalán

Abstract:

One of the fundamental principles of sociolinguistics is that language is not homogeneous and that no single person speaks in the same way all the time. Numerous studies have provided evidence of linguistic variation across situations of use in English (e.g. Bell 1984; Biber 1988; Biber and Finegan 1994). However, under special conditions when a language is restricted to very familiar situations, speakers might not show register variation (Dressler 1982). For most heritage speakers of Spanish in the

U.S., English is the dominant language while Spanish is largely restricted to home and family interactions. This dissertation explores the hypothesis of variation across registers in Spanish as a heritage language. Additionally, it examines speakers of Spanish as a second language since

Spanish is also their non-dominant language.

For the purpose of studying register and style variation, this dissertation focuses on several linguistic features that are expected to vary in relation to the type of register: discourse particles, contractions, and various lexical choices. The data analyzed come from recorded spoken samples produced in Spanish by heritage and second language speakers and collected in three situations of use: conversations, interviews, and presentations, ranging on a scale from less to more formal.

The results indicate that both heritage and second language speakers show linguistic variation in their Spanish across registers. The results also reveal some quantitative as well as qualitative differences between the production of heritage and second language speakers across registers. These contrasts are the result of the different input to which the speakers have been exposed to during acquisition.

This dissertation contributes to further our understanding of bilingualism by examining Spanish as a heritage and as a second language across different registers, which has not been previously investigated. It provides evidence of variation in a relatively small range of registers in the speakers’ non-dominant language. This is an important finding since it shows that even when the use of the language is largely restricted to a particular domain (home and family interactions for heritage speakers and classroom interactions for second language learners), we can still find register variation.