Language And Identity: Cultural Contact, Community Identity, And Language Use

This article explores the identities of two former native-born Mexican citizens who formerly resided in similar rural and geographically close regions of Guanajuato, Mexico. Both informants have emigrated to the culturally diverse city of Chicago within the United States. While both informants have moved from similar regions and have ultimately moved to the same city, their language use (English language and Spanish language) have evolved in a similar manner referring to the English language as well as a very different manner referring to the Spanish language. What has caused the impact on their language use when they hold similar experiences in this move across nations? In this presentation we explore the relationship between nationality, power within a community, as well as cultural contact and how all of these concepts combined can impact one’s identity and language use (dialectal), specifically vocabulary. Within this research we look at the different yet similar experiences of our two informants and how community and cultural contact have over time affected/ not affected their identities and language use in rather similar yet different ways. The findings are presented through an analysis of short responses and storytelling via interview(s). These data are analyzed thematically for best understanding of content in relation to which concept(s) impacted or rather not impact their language use and in what form. Specifically, our informants’ identities are examined as community identities (Edwards(2009), Hua & Wei (2016), Henry (2017), McEntee-Atalianis (2019), inter alia, that is, identities constructed either by themselves or by the people surrounding them and how this has impacted their social inclusion experiences. In the case of our informants’ this identity (co-)construction relates to their sense of belonging, power given/ taken in a conversation, and ultimately the opportunity to use and evolve within the language(s)