Language mixing strategies amongst U.S. Latinos on Instagram

• In Event: Crossing Borderlands of Latinidad

Abstract

Historically, a large majority of the research on U.S. Spanish-English code-switching (CS) has focused on its production in oral discourse (e.g. Poplack 1979, Zentella 1997, Toribio 2004, among others). More recently, there have been studies that have examined it in written discourse (e.g. Potowski 2011, Casielles-Suarez 2013, Dumitrescu 2014, Derrick 2015, among others). Some scholars have also studied Spanish-English CS along with other language pairs in chat rooms (Cárdenas-Claro and Isharyanti 2009) and in blogs (Montes-Alcalá 2007 and Hernandez 2009). However, to date, there has not been a significant body of research on Spanish-English CS in social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. This paper analyzes the Spanish-English CS in the Instagram posts of 25 U.S. bilingual Hispanics that utilize CS regularly. To analyze their posts, I carry out a linguistic analysis using Muysken’s (2000) and Derrick’s (2015) typology of CS to examine the types of language mixing strategies they use to include both languages in their social media accounts. I conclude with observations of the trends present on their Instagram pages, which highlight the hybrid linguistic identity of these U.S. Spanish-English bilinguals who embrace their bilingual abilities and biculturalism.

Author

• Roshawnda Derrick