Linguistic variables

Mendoza-Denton (1997), building on the (-ing) studies of Galindo (1987), divided -ing into two variables: (ɪ) and Th-Pro. She conducted an ethnography in a northern California high school, focusing on Chicana social groups. Among other young women’s groups, Mendoza-Denton worked closely with two rival gangs. To become a gang member in this school, a girl must either identify as a sureña or a norteña. These oppositional identities were expressed across the full range of social symbols, from clothing and makeup to facial expression and posture. One key feature of sureña identity is linguistic distancing from English, which sureñas accomplish by eschewing English in favor of Spanish. Norteñas, on the other hand, mark their identity via Spanish/English codeswitching and use of English. While these groups of young women pull away from each other via overt linguistic choices, at a more fundamental level they share identity features that express antagonism toward Euro-American society.

Variable raising and lowering of (ɪ) is present of the speech of both norteñas and sureñas (Mendoza-Denton 1999). Chances are greatest that the vowel will be lower before a nasal. An engma (which here corresponds to the U.S. standard nasal in -ing) is less ethnically marked than an alveolar nasal (which corresponds to the substrate nasal consonant). The raising process occurs most prominently among gang members and gang-affiliated groups, and these young women raised (ɪ) most frequently with -thing words. Sureñas and norteñas both used increased frequencies of raised [iŋ] and especially [in] forms of (ɪ), to signal greater social distance from both Chicanas who identify with Euro-Americans, and from Euro-Americans. Chicana gang members also employ a meaningful lowering of /ɪ/. Hence they exploit iota, (ɪ), a front lax vowel with no Spanish correspondence, to express identity and ideology. Among Chicanos and Chicanas, in contrast, the closely-related tense vowel /i/ never lowers to [i] (Fought 2003: 65).

In northern California, -thing words such as something, nothing, and phrases such as and everything, may be characterized as Th-Pro, a gang discourse marker (Mendoza-Denton 1999). This is not thing, the pronoun, which is used to refer to noun antecedents. Rather Th-Pro serves to construct mutual understanding and reinforce solidarity between gang interlocutors. Consider the underscored discourse marker in: “I was walking around the other day and José stopped to talk to me and everything.” Mendoza-Denton gives three reasons (1997: 139–141) why “and everything” is well suited to signal in-group referencing: 1) as an example of a clause-terminal discourse marker, it is stigmatized by middle-class speakers; 2) the underspecified semantics of thing allows it to be used widely across any number of inferences associated with in-group understandings; 3) the three phonemes in (-ing) are each subject to ELL transfer stigma, /θ/, /ɪ/, and /ŋ/, hence providing a full range of expression of in-group/out-group social positioning.

Mendoza-Denton has brought us full circle. We can imagine how an ELL rendering something as [santɪn] would trigger a White chauvinist’s derisive remark, to the speaker’s embarrassment. She has shown us that a mark of embarrassment has been subverted to become a marker of ethnic identification. Although (-ing) is currently an indicator (since it is not consciously recognized by these in-group speakers), it is associated with the stereotypical speech of ELLs. This overlap suggests that the classic empirical linguistic trinity of variables (indicator, marker, and stigmatized form) should be reconsidered. Mendoza-Denton has documented the rich heterogeneity of Chicanos, focusing on women’s lives and language, and the tensions and conflicts within these communities. To further illustrate the complexity of identity matters in dialect contact settings, Fought (2003: 66) observed in West Los Angeles that Euro-Americans who live among Chicanos also use the raised [iŋ] and [in] forms of (-ing).

A major sound change in progress in California, /u/-fronting, has also been investigated in ChcE (Fought 1997, 2003). Fought also initiated studies of less well-known processes, (æ-backing) and (æ-raising). Not only did she account for system-internal factors, with sensitive ethnographic work across social classes, gender, age and employment groups of Chicanos in West Los Angeles, but she was able to characterize the social value articulated by (u-fronting) among these Chicanos and their Euro-American neighbors. At the risk of oversimplification, Fought ascertained that Chicanos associate this linguistic variable with Euro-American identity and hegemony. Accordingly, middle-class female ChcE speakers without gang affiliation fronted their /u/ to the greatest extent. Conversely, working-class or low-income earning Chicanos who are affiliates or members of gangs articulated /u/ in the most backed, least fronted vowel space. Other ChcE speakers having other mixes of these social factors have intermediate patterns of /u/-fronting. No single social category could account for indexical coding for assimilationist identity among the speakers who participated in Fought’s study.

Furthermore, Fought demonstrated that Chicanos, as a linguistic minority community, do not necessarily have the same relationship that speakers of AAVE have with the matrix Euro-American local dialect. In 2001 William Labov stated, “no matter how frequently they are exposed to the local [Euro-American] vernacular, the new patterns of regional sound change do not surface in … Black, Hispanic, or Native American … speech” (cited in Fought 2003: 112). His statement was overly general, since Los Angeles Chicanos participated in u-fronting, as Veatch (1991) and Santa Ana (1991) noted in their separate instrumental studies. Moreover, Fought provided both a detailed description of the participation of the Chicano community in, and social meanings associated with, this Californian change in progress. Second, Fought made a crucial observation concerning language internal matters of sound change. Fronting of /u/ is not advancing in the expected “curvilinear pattern”, namely where the most innovative, “most advanced vowel systems are found among younger speakers: young adults and youth in late adolescence”, and that occupational groups with highest and lowest social status disfavor the changes in progress (Fought 2003: 125). Indeed, ChcE participation in (u-fronting) cuts across socioeconomic groups: “the group with the highest /u/-fronting includes women from both middle-class backgrounds, and very low socioeconomic backgrounds” (Fought 2003: 125).