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Spanish-English Codeswitching in the Caribbean and the US
Edited by Rosa E. Guzzardo Tamargo, Catherine M. Mazak and M. Carmen Parafita Couto
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 11] 2016
► pp. 61–80

Codeswitching among African-American English, Spanish and Standard English in computer-mediated discourse

The negotiation of identities by Puerto Rican students

| University of Miami, Florida

This chapter examines codeswitching (CS) behaviors among African-­American English, Spanish and Standard English by Puerto Rican Return Migrant (PRRM) students as they develop academic writing in Spanish and English and use their writing to create websites. The students exchange e-mail messages which highlight the covert manner in which racialized discourses are negotiated. The chapter investigates the extent to which computer-mediated discourse (through e-mail messages) shapes PRRM students’ negotiations of identities in CS. In doing so, the chapter analyzes CS in naturally occurring discourses to show how PRRMs enact the notion of resistance/solidarity by creating social boundaries between the prestige accorded the dominant code of whiteness, i.e., Standard English and resistance/solidarity accorded African-American English and Spanish in urban America and Puerto Rico.

Keywords: African-American English, computer discourse, Hip Hop, Puerto Ricans, Spanish
Published online: 7 September 2016
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.11.03cla
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