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Spanish Subject Expression in Roswell, Georgia: Dialect Formation In SPANISH SUBJECT EXPRESSION IN ROSWELL, GEORGIA: DIALECT FORMATION IN AN EMERGING BILINGUAL COMMUNITY by PHILIP P. LIMERICK (Under the Direction of Chad Howe) ABSTRACT This study examines the use of Spanish subject pronouns in Roswell, Georgia. Specifically, I investigate the influence of linguistic and social variables on pronoun use in this variety of Spanish, which has not received the same degree of attention as well-studied varieties (e.g. New York). Sociolinguistic interviews were conducted in Roswell (Wilson 2013) and transcribed to allow for analysis of pronouns and factors that may influence subject expression (e.g. person/number) as well as social variables (e.g. length of residency). Results indicate an overall pronoun rate of 21%, similar to that of Mainland newcomers in New York (Otheguy et al. 2007). However, results from the multivariate analysis suggest that pronoun usage in Roswell diverges from these communities, with differential effects observed for factors such as Person/number and Coreferentiality Index. This analysis of subject expression in the Roswell data reveals an intermediate stage of language shift in this particular community. INDEX WORDS: subject pronouns, Spanish in the United States, Georgia, language shift dialect formation, Roswell, Mexican Spanish SPANISH SUBJECT EXPRESSION IN ROSWELL, GEORGIA: DIALECT FORMATION IN AN EMERGING BILINGUAL COMMUNITY by PHILIP P. LIMERICK B.A., Indiana University of Pennsylvania, 2009 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree MASTER OF ARTS ATHENS, GEORGIA 2014 © 2014 Philip P. Limerick All Rights Reserved SPANISH SUBJECT EXPRESSION IN ROSWELL, GEORGIA: DIALECT FORMATION IN AN EMERGING BILINGUAL COMMUNITY by PHILIP P. LIMERICK Major Professor: Chad Howe Committee: Sarah Blackwell Margaret Quesada Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2014 iv DEDICATION This thesis is dedicated to my mother and my father for all their love, support, guidance, and encouragement during my first two years of graduate school. v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS There are numerous people to whom I would like to express my gratitude for helping to make this thesis possible. First, I would like to thank Dr. Chad Howe, my major professor, for all his help and guidance throughout this project. He has devoted a significant amount of time to helping me throughout all the different stages of analysis and writing and has provided me with invaluable insight and suggestions that have greatly improved this thesis, making for a final product I am truly happy with. I would also like to thank my committee members, Drs. Blackwell and Quesada, for their encouragement and helpful suggestions during the final stages of the thesis and also for the knowledge base that they provided me in the courses I have had the opportunity of taking with them. Second, I would like to thank my colleague, Anna Wilson, for her efforts in collecting data in Roswell and for making the interviews available to me for analysis. Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all my family and friends and especially to my wonderful girlfriend and best friend, Chantell Smith, for her encouragement, interest, support, and love throughout this endeavor. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................................ v LIST OF TABLES ....................................................................................................................... viii LIST OF FIGURES ....................................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ............................................................................................. 6 2.1 PRO-DROP IN SPANISH .................................................................................. 6 2.2 PRAGMATIC CONSTRAINTS ....................................................................... 7 2.3 SPANISH IN THE UNITED STATES .............................................................. 9 2.4 PRONOUN RATES AND COMMON LINGUISTIC AND SOCIAL FACTORS INFLUENCING PRONOUN USAGE ............................................ 10 3 METHODOLOGY ..................................................................................................... 17 3.1 DATA AND PARTICIPANTS......................................................................... 17 3.2 THE ENVELOPE OF VARIATION ................................................................ 19 3.3 CODING OF DATA ......................................................................................... 21 4 RESULTS ................................................................................................................... 37 4.1 INDIVIDUAL AND OVERALL PRONOUN RATES ................................... 37 vii 4.2 FACTORS CONDITIONING THE EXPRESSION OF SUBJECT PRONOUNS ....................................................................................................... 40 4.3 LANGUAGE SHIFT IN ROSWELL ............................................................... 47 5 CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION ........................................................................ 51 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................................. 54 viii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1: Demographic changes in Roswell population between 2000 and 2010 ........................... 4 Table 2: Overall PN rates of monolingual varieties...................................................................... 11 Table 3: Overall PN rates of contact varieties .............................................................................. 11 Table 4: Variable hierarchies for Caribbean and Mainland newcomers in NYC ......................... 13 Table 5: Individual PN rates and sociodemographic information ................................................ 38 Table 6: Overall rates of subject pronoun expression in Roswell ................................................ 39 Table 7: Comparison of PN rates between Roswell Spanish and other varieties ......................... 40 Table 8: Hierarchy of variables related to subject expression ...................................................... 42 Table 9: Hierarchy of constraints on SP use ................................................................................. 43 Table 10: Variable hierarchy as compared with Otheguy et al. (2007:789) ................................. 48 ix LIST OF FIGURES Page Figure 1: Map of Georgia ............................................................................................................... 1 Figure 2: Population growth of Roswell, GA since 1950 ............................................................... 3 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION The expression of subject pronouns in Spanish is one of the most extensively studied features both in monolingual and contact varieties of the language (Silva-Corvalán 1982; Bentivoglio 1987; Cameron 1993; Flores-Ferrán 2004; Otheguy, Zentella & Livert 2007; Travis 2007; Orozco & Guy 2008; Torres Cacoullos & Travis 2010; Carvalho & Child 2011; Abreu 2012; Erker & Guy 2012; Otheguy & Zentella 2012, among others). There are various linguistic and social factors that have been shown to influence pronoun usage, and while many of these conditioning factors are consistent among the many dialects of Spanish, the differing social situations and underlying grammars associated with each dialect have an effect on and reflect unique speech patterns concerning the explicit or implicit expression of subject pronouns in certain dialects. The general goal of this thesis is to examine the use of Spanish pronouns among speakers in Roswell, Georgia (see Figure 1), an exurb of Atlanta that does not fit into the typical urban/rural dichotomy. Figure 1: Map of Georgia 2 This specific geographical region allows for linguistic analysis of a unique, emerging speech community comprised of a significantly increasing Latino population, which grew from approximately 10.6% of the city’s total population in 2000 to 16.6% by the 2010 U.S. Census (U.S. Bureau of the Census 2010). Specifically, I investigate the influence of both linguistic and social variables on the distribution of subject pronoun use by speakers of this particular variety of US Spanish, which has not received the same degree of attention as well studied varieties (e.g. New York, Los Angeles). Furthermore, given that the language contact situation in Roswell is much less established than that of bilingual communities in the Southwest or Northeast, a study of this type allows for a unique opportunity to examine the process of linguistic change in its initial stages with regard to Spanish in the United States. This thesis also contributes to the broader goals of a research organization called the Roswell Voices Project, which began in 2002 as a partnership between researchers at the University of Georgia and the Roswell Convention and Visitors Bureau (Kretzschmar et al. 2007). The primary goal of the Roswell Voices Project is to document life and language among the city’s different communities, which has mainly involved research on the African-American and Caucasian communities in particular. The Latino community
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