Name: Minh Nguyen
LING 8510 – Socio-Linguistics
Prof. Thor Sawin
PROJECT 1: Language Ideologies
MAKING SPANISH A CO-OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF CALIFORNIA
The U.S., known for its multicultural diversity, has long been regarded as an English-speaking country by the world. However, despite the dominant use of English over minority languages inside the US, the country actually has no official language (OL), which remains unknown to a large proportion of American residents (White, 2012). As a result, those people came up with the “English-only” movement and confidently argue all states have or should have English as the OL. The argument causes controversies, especially in the states where other languages are becoming the second most spoken after English. For example, 38% of the population in “multilingual” California was Hispanic, making it the second most popular language apart from English (announced by U.S. census, 2010). This has drawn people’s attention to the idea “making Spanish the co-official language of California”.
Although there has been no published work on this topic, there are many studies conducted on how some languages gained the official status, which involved certain social, political, or economical factors. For instance, Irish, spoken as everyday language by only 3% of the population and not used by politicians, became the OL due to the governmental strategies dedicated to the survival and revival of the language when Irish people had decided to “keep speaking the language of their invaders and forgot about their native language, Irish.” (Viladebait, 2013). Another interesting example is Rwanda, a former Francophone nation, adopting English as the only OL and French becomes the second language. The Rwandan government’s choice of using strong English language policies to establish its official status in laws, government, and education system was closely linked with the political and economic benefits brought by English as a lingua franca among countries. McGreal (2009) mentioned a Rwandan politician’ saying that English made “today” Rwanda and other languages could also become OL if they could benefit the country like English did. As for the US, people have held ambivalent ideologies towards Spanish. The most heard reason for promoting Spanish as an official status in the US or California is the growing number of Spanish speakers, but there have been strong stigmas against Spanish use. Hill (1998) noted “Whites hear other public Spanish as impolite and even dangerous, and many Spanish-speaking bilingual had encountered complaints about using Spanish in a public place”. Intrigued by public ambivalence towards the Spanish language in the U.S., I was planning to conduct a study of how people, specifically the ones living in the Monterey Bay area, would respond to Spanish as a co-official language. That’s why I come up with the main research questions: – Do you think CA has an OL?; – What would a “co-official language” mean to you?; – What do you think about “making Spanish a co-official language in CA”?; and – What challenges are there for the idea to be implemented?”
METHODOLOGY
To collect informative data, I did interviews with nine people coming from three groups: Local American Resident group (“L” group), Temporary American Resident group (“T” group), and International Student/People group (“I” group). Each group involved three participants who were referred to as L1, L2, L3 (local residents); T1, T2, T3 (temporary residents); and I1, I2, I3 (international people). In addition to the questions mentioned above, the interviewees were also asked several questions about their background that can be referred to when their responses are discussed later, which is presented in the following table:
Table 1. Background Information of the Interviewees
* Levels of languages: N – Native (first language acquired); F – Fluent (can communicate about academic/casual topics/nearly native); P – Professional (can translate in that language); A – Advanced (may not be able to speak about academic/professional topics); I – Intermediate; C- Conversational.From a glance at the table, 2/3 of the “L” group was against the idea whereas 2/3 of the “T” group and all the international students supported the “co-official” status of Spanish in California. Also, the ones saying “No” didn’t speak Spanish or was barely aware of Spanish surrounding in California.
RESULTS
Does California have an official language (OL)?
Regarding an “official language”, all the interviewees can be divided into two groups: those who believes English is the official language of California (mostly because they think it is also official for the US), and those who don’t. Some of the latter people knew that there are several states which declared their own OL(s) but hadn’t heard of similar official claim in California whereas the rest contend the country didn’t have any official language and neither did the state. In fact, California has English as its official language since the approval of the California Proposition 63 in 1986. However, I only shared the information with the participants after finishing our interviews in order to avoid any change to their existing beliefs.
What would a co-official language be?
I clearly recognized people understood what a co-official language based on their belief and experience of the official language. Having either agreed or disagreed about the existence of an OL in California, the interviewees all answered a co-official language would be another language used side-by-side with the existing OL. Whereas some believed the co-official language could have equal status to the OL, others pointed out the co-official one must have less power.One interviewee (T1) explained why she thought a co-official language could never be equal to the OL by giving the example of Spain where she spent one year studying. She said in Spain, everybody needs to learn the OL, i.e. Spanish (castellano), and can choose to learn any of the three co-official languages (these are recognised as OL in regional governments of Spain), namely, Galician (gellego), Catalan (catalá), and Basque (euskera). She based her attitude towards “co-official” language on the model of Spain as the US had no comparable models.On the other hand, the people who maintain a co-official language should share the same status with the OL brought up the examples of Canada and Salinas, CA. From their experience, although only Quebec in Canada speaks all French, both English and French are considered official languages; governors and officials can speak and the legal system is run in both languages. Also, living and working in the Monterey Bay area allows the interviewees to get familiar with Salinas – a nearby city – where Spanish is used almost everywhere English is or even dominant in several neighborhoods within the city. That’s how these people imagine how a co-official language might be.
Oppose Spanish as a Co-official language
Regarding making Spanish a co-official language of California, participants’ opinions divide into six “for” and three “against” the idea. Although just 3 out of 9 people interviewed (L1, L2, &T1) thought this idea was unreasonable and impractical, they still represent for part of the Monterey population facing this issue. Their reasons for opposing Spanish as a co-official language were sociocultural ones. They questioned why Spanish should be chosen over other languages whose speakers also account for a big part of Californians. Due to more experience with and exposure to Chinese, rather than Spanish, in Monterey, T1 said Spanish wasn’t currently used as much in the state as people might think. She also actually couldn’t imagine how the co-official status of Spanish would function if approved; in other words, she didn’t know how California could operate with two OLs. As a co-official language, Spanish could either be compulsory or optional for people to learn. If residents could choose to learn one of the official languages – English or Spanish, those who opt for Spanish would have very limited opportunities for higher education and employment in the US, as she argued. Those people might have to go to Spanish-speaking countries to attend university. They would also have difficulty finding jobs outside California as English has been mainly used in most places. If Spanish is a required school language alongside English, she believes the idea would not work because “Americans don’t like being told what to do.” Her opinion was really interesting to me as I had never thought of this aspect before, which later forms one of the contentious questions within this ideology topic – “Should the co-official language be required or optional?”The second reason by this “against” group is related to politics or state management. They said it would be confusing to have more than a common language, arguing that other languages would also reach a point like Spanish when their numbers of speakers constituted an equally large part of California population. One interviewee (L1) even claimed people speaking Spanish who come to the US have to learn English as “do as the Romans do, when in Rome”. In his opinion, the US has accepted people of different languages from different cultures, so why those people should expect Americans to learn their language, in this case, Spanish. As for him, everything can be done in English, why do people need another “common” language? He, therefore, didn’t see any benefits brought about by this idea. Similarly, L2 supported English as the “only common language” for the “unity” reason. Another OL may undermine the national unity of the US, leading to more problems in running California in particular and the US in general.This group also attributed their objection to the economic possibility. They assumed it would be very expensive to realize this idea and make changes with the current systems with all legal documents at government level, signs, or materials used for education translated into Spanish or published bilingually. This is a valid argument as Roberts (1995) mentioned “other languages in education are a luxury that cannot be afforded in difficult economic times” when he was listing common reasons against bilingual education.
Support Spanish as a Co-official language
As mentioned above, 6 out of 9 people thought the idea really made sense, with the International group all supporting it. The reasons why they agreed can also be categorized into socio-cultural and political factors.In the first category, the leading reason given by the supporters is due to the huge population of native speakers of Spanish in California. Establishing Spanish as the co-official language alongside English would show the recognition and respect for this important ethnic group who constitutes a large part of Californian residents.This would not only reconfirm the Hispanic identity but also enrich the existing culture of the state, which was given as the second most-common reason by the “for” group. The increased status of the Spanish language would empower the Hispanic culture more in relation to the American culture, developing the cultural diversity. Two participants (T1 & T2) shared the view that the enabled empowerment of the Spanish language and culture wouldn’t cause it to break away from the mainstream culture – the so-called American culture – but instead, would allow people to become more culturally aware.Some other reasons, which are equally interesting, came from individuals’ perspective. T3 believed American people had “an easy ride” with English widely used. Many don’t bother learning an additional language because people of other languages are learning English, she explained. Therefore, proposing Spanish as a co-official language would expose them to learning another language and make them more sympathetic towards English language learners. L3 – the only local agreeing on the co-official status of both languages – pointed out English, originally, wasn’t the language of the US but brought by the English settlers. Some in this supporting group told me that, based on what they had seen around the Monterey Bay area, Spanish had been used almost as much as English in daily settings and could possibly be considered a co-official language in California; it just needed giving the official recognition from the authorities and legal approval. In the political sphere, the proponents argue that Spanish as a co-official language would benefit the state government. With such a big number of Spanish native speakers in California, the authority and legal system would address this population more directly and smoothly by increasing the power of their own language.
How a co-official language might work
The interviewees then continued sharing their expectations of how that supposed status might work in the future. Whether imagining that the co-official language would have an equal or lower status to the OL, their answers didn’t reveal consensus on what amount of Spanish use (compared to English) as a co-official in California would mean. However, there are seemingly two issues within people’ ideologies shared across the interviews: 1) to what extent Spanish should be used; and 2) whether Spanish as a co-official language would be mandatory to learn.The supporters would want to see Spanish uses in every aspect of life in California including government/public services, media, and education (documents, papers, and signs issued for state administration, legal system, public services and all professions). They specified all government officials should be bilingual in both Spanish and English to address speakers of Spanish, which would help make important government information accessible to them. Greater media use was also discussed. However, due to the flexibility and rapid change in media industry, the participants think there should be more resources available in Spanish and not necessarily all bilingual. For example, more magazines and newspapers could be published in Spanish or attempt to include topics and themes addressing the Hispanic population’s interests.The potential use of Spanish as a co-official language in the educational field elicited ambiguous responses. All the interviewees imagine there would be critical changes in education if the idea was accepted but weren’t able to clarify how it would work. Only two interviewees (T3 and I2) stated Spanish should be required to learn along with English to prove its co-official status whereas the others believe people should be given a choice of learning language(s). Still, all the participants mentioned bilingual educational programs but weren’t certain about how the existing programs, if any, have been conducted and how they would be conducted if Spanish were official. Again, some relied on their experience with such programs to describe the possible use of a “co-official” Spanish language. One interesting observation is that some bilingual programs have 50% of the subjects taught in a language and 50% taught in another language, which I have heard of for the first time and made me research more about how bilingual programs are actually being run. A participant (T2) talked about a bilingual program in Spanish and Basque delivered in a Basque-speaking region in Spain. What she described is quite similar to the “Maintenance Bilingual Education” model reviewed by Roberts (1995) whose goal is to “have the students of both language backgrounds studying content classes in both languages”. T3 shared her own experience gained in a bilingual program in primary school in the US. She said possibly half of the class time was in English and half in Spanish; the subjects were available in both languages so that students could choose to take which class in which language. She also took part in a school play where Spanish speakers played roles speaking English and vice versa for native English speakers. Her experience might be somewhat like Roberts’ discussion of “Enrichment, two-way Bilingual” education. In this model, “classes taught in the morning might be taught in one language, while classes taught in the afternoon might be taught in the other…Another possibility is to teach one content class such as math in one language, and then teach the next math class in the other language in the next semester.” Roberts also pointed out that a bilingual program can devote to subtractive bilingualism (L1 replaced by L2) or addictive bilingualism (L1 and L2 acquisition has complementary relationship). Through her discussion, additive bilingualism can be promoted by Maintenance or Enrichment model, both of which are aimed at learners’ literacy in both languages. Considering the case of Spanish, the Maintenance program might be more appropriate to examine for Spanish-English education as it’s intended for speakers of non-English languages (the other focuses on native speakers). In this program, “learners are transitioned into English content classes, and are given support in their first language, as in transitional bilingual programs”, but “they also receive language arts in their native language, enabling them to become literate in that language, and they continue to receive content area classes in their target language, so that they become literate in both languages.” Additionally, Roberts emphasized this model is feasible where “there are sufficiently large number of students of one language background” to hire bilingual teachers and where there are adequate “interest and support” from the local community.
Challenges to adopting a co-official language
Whether going against the idea or not, all the participants in my project agreed there would be a lot of challenges facing the official approval of Spanish as a co-official language of California. One of the leading concerns is how to convince more than half of the state population to support the idea, and how to get such a proposition passed by the state government. These unwilling people might come from the groups who speak only English, who just want to stay inside their comfort zone without bothering learning additional languages, who are speakers of other minority languages spoken in California, or who have prejudices against other languages. Another considerable hurdle lies in education. The question of bilingual program delivery might demand redesigned curricula at state level, more investment and provision of materials and literature, staff and teacher training, etc. Such changes would consume a lot of time and money. However, Roberts (1995) mentioned that Maintenance Bilingual programs may need similar financial investment to that for a transitional one which “provides content area support in the native language while teaching the student English”. The situation would be the same from a socio-cultural perspective, believed by the participants. Changes in legal documents and labor force in all professions and public sectors for a “balanced” official status for both English and Spanish would be expensive.
Limitations of the study
Even though the qualitative data collected from the interview process reveal some fascinating insights into “Making Spanish a co-official language of California”, there are certain limitations in the way the data collection, analysis and interpretation were conducted. Due to the difficulty in gaining access to local residents, many of the people I interviewed have got involved in academic and formal settings already, which might not be truly representative of the Monterey Bay area. The time limit allowed for this project neither allowed me to interview more people with more diverse background and experiences, which might also impact the data validity. The choice of participants, hopefully, might help compensate these limitations since the interviewees were either native speakers of Spanish or of English, were able to speak Spanish or not, were at a young age and old age. The people who knew Spanish fluently, surprisingly, did not appreciate the idea whereas the people who barely spoke any Spanish were actually excited about it. Noticeably, the people belonging to the international student group welcomed the appeal for granting Spanish the co-official position inside California. Despite the restrictions that require further research, this short description and discussion of several “Monterey” people’s viewpoints has provided an overview of the current, existing attitudes embraced in the ideology system of the Monterey Bay area.
References
Hill, J. (1998). Language, Race, and White Public Space. American Anthropologist,100 (3), 680-689. Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association.McGreal, C. (2009). Why Rwanda said adieu to French. The Guardian. Roberts, C. (1995). Bilingual education program models: A framework for understanding. The Bilingual Research Journal, 19, 369-378.Viladebait, M. (2013). The Irish and their language. Treball de fi de grau. Universitat Pompeu Fabra.White, L. (2012). English-only policy and beliefs in the United States. Honors Theses. University of New Hampshire.http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-12685408 (for US Census figures)