Elise Hofer

Lang 2020
May 5, 2014
Steven Sternfeld

Spanish and English examples of Sociolinguistic Concepts

Part one Bio-Sketch
My name is Elise Hofer I was born in Ogden, Utah to a family that speaks English as
their sole language of communication. The first time I tried to learn a language was in an extracurricular class at my preschool (which is a misnomer because I spent my afternoons there for
years, passing the time between when school got out and my mom got off of work). I took both
Spanish and ASL classes briefly and none of it stuck. My next encounter with language learning
didnt come until Junior High, where I began to take Spanish classes again. By the end of High
School, I had learned roughly the equivalent of one semester of college Spanish.
The year that I took this Language 2020 class was my sophomore year at the University.
That is to say, as you read this I will be in my final year at the University. I am majoring in
Spanish with a business minor. I learned most of my Spanish through traditional classes. I have
not traveled to Spanish-speaking parts of the world for extended periods of time, nor have I
travelled very much at all, though I did take six credits (the equivalent of 2010 and 2020) in
Spain over the duration of about six weeks in the summer of 2013. As a result of this trip, as well
as certain instructors, I am more familiar with peninsular or Castilian Spanish than many people
who have not visited there. So, in addition to being able to understand examples from English
and Spanish, I can also sometimes discern dialects of Spanish. (267)
Part two final paper
Now that you know a little bit more about me, I would like to share a few examples from
my own experience that illustrate certain concepts that we learned in this class. Our instructors
goal for us was to take these concepts to heart and begin to notice and look for them in our daily
lives. I have started doing that, both with current examples and by looking back on previous
experiences. I actually do find sociolinguistics quite fascinating and have been surprised at how
many times illustrations of these concepts pop up in my daily life. For our purposes, I think four
examples should suffice. In this essay, I will share examples of divergence, code-switching,
calques, and changes from below, and I will explain what those terms mean.
The first example I would like to share is a demonstration of divergence. Divergence is
when one speaker changes their speech to be less like that of the person they are speaking to.
Since there are many factors that can affect the way people talk to each other, I will start by
setting the scene. The place is Spain, outside of a theater just after a performance. The speakers
are me, an American student learning Spanish who just attended the concert and a woman from
the band who played violin. She said she was from the Czech Republic so I suspect her first
language was neither English nor Spanish. I began to ask her questions in Spanish and she

replied to them in English. I dont know if she chose English because she knew I was an
American student or because she wasnt comfortable with her speaking ability in Spanish or
both, but the fact that I began in Spanish and she moved to English makes her speech divergent
from mine.
My second example is one of code-switching. Code-switching is when a person moves
from using one language or dialect to another. Code-switching always has a reason behind it,
even if that reason is not immediately apparent. In this case, English to Spanish and back. The
setting is a home renovation show, their relationship is a couple and they are talking about a
particularly difficult decision which the woman is concerned about. The husband makes a few
logical points in English, notices that his wife is still quite worried and says Tienes que confiar
en mi, you have to trust me. The husband switches to the more familiar Spanish to make an
emotional appeal to his wife, and then moves back to English to make sure the cameras still
catch whats going on. You can see how the motivations behind code-switching might not be
immediately obvious, but when we take into account the setting, the speakers, their relationship
to each other, and what theyre talking about, it allows us to make an educated guess as to why
they might have switched from one language or dialect to another.
The third example Im going to give is a smaller one. The concept is called a calque
and its a word that is directly translated from one language to another. Normally, I wouldnt
include something like this because its so short but the interesting thing about this example is
that I noticed the phenomenon when I learned the word, I just didnt know there was word for
this phenomenon until I took this class. Skyscrapers in Spanish is rascacielos, from rascar,
to scratch, and cielo, for sky. So, we have an English word sky-scraper, that was broken down
into its constituent parts and directly translated rasca-cielo. I remember thinking when I learned
this word that it was the same thing directly translated into Spanish, but I did not know this
phenomenon was called a calque until I took this Lang 2020 class.
The fourth and final example Im going to give is an example of what are called changes
from below. This phrase can have two meanings. Change from below can mean any change in
the speech of society as a whole which begins with lower class and colloquial speaking and
move their way up to more formal speech. For this example, change from below means a change
below our conscious awareness, which usually happens on a more personal level. I have a friend
who is absolutely adamant that pronounciation (noun instead of nun) is an incorrect
spelling/pronunciation of pronunciation and she is adamant that she would never say it under
any circumstances. However, in observing this friends actual speech, I have noted her use of the
word pronounciation in conversation on multiple occasions. Consciously, she derides and
condemns its use, but subconsciously she acknowledges it as a viable variation of the word,
which leads to her using it when shes not being careful about what shes saying. This is an
example of a change from below, and this phenomenon is pretty common as you will see later in
the semester.
I hope my examples have illustrated that you can find examples of the concepts that you
will learn in this class all around you. I have shown you divergence, code-switching, calques, and
changes from below, but those are only a few of the many concepts that you will learn in this
class. I have enjoyed searching for these phenomena and speculating why people speak in certain
ways and I hope you will as well. I hope you are able to find many more examples that are more
relevant to you personally and to your own experience of languages. If you keep your ears and
mind open, theres plenty for you to examine. (930)