Loading...
Assessing usage of Spanish among non-first generation heritage speakers
Aguilar-Maldonado, Kevin
Aguilar-Maldonado, Kevin
Files
Authors
Other Names
Location
Time Period
Advisors
Original Date
Digitization Date
Issue Date
2025-04-25
Type
Abstract
Genre
Keywords
Language transfer,Immigrants, 2nd generation,Latin Americans,Spanish language
Subjects (LCSH)
Citation
Aguilar-Maldonado, Kevin. 2025. Assessing usage of Spanish among non-first generation heritage speakers. -- In Proceedings: 24th Annual Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum. Wichita, KS: Wichita State University, p. 25
Abstract
Despite having no official language, the United States' de facto primary language is English, which often leads to communities often experiencing language transfer. One of these communities that experiences this is descendants of first-generation immigrants, who often eschew the language of their ancestors in favor of English. To determine the extent of this phenomenon, a Qualtrics survey that asks them when, where, and how often they use Spanish in their day-to-day life, as well as answering questions on what language they feel most comfortable with using, what language they consider to be their "first," and what level of proficiency they believe their Spanish to be at, was given to a pool of subjects that consisted of WSU students bilingual in both Spanish and English that were not first-generation immigrants, but still heritage speakers of Spanish. The results are currently being collected and analyzed to determine the level of language shift occurring in the analyzed pool of subjects, with the results expected to be a series of sliding scales that will determine how comfortable the heritage speakers are in Spanish.
Table of Contents
Description
Presented to the 24th Undergraduate Research and Creative Activity Forum (URCAF) held in Woolsey Hall, Wichita State University, April 25, 2025.
Publisher
Wichita State University
Journal
Book Title
Series
URCAF;v.24