Sponsor
Portland State University. Department of Applied Linguistics.
First Advisor
Kimberley A. Brown
Date of Publication
8-5-1994
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (M.A.) in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages
Department
Teaching English as a Second Language
Language
English
Subjects
Mexican American women -- Pacific States -- Language, Code switching (Linguistics) -- Pacific States, Bilingualism -- Pacific States
DOI
10.15760/etd.6696
Physical Description
1 online resource ( 2, vi, 190 p.)
Abstract
This case study presents the language life history of an American woman of Mexican descent. The informant describes the ways in which her two languages, English and Spanish, developed and have been used throughout her life. She narrates how living with two languages has affected her in each period of her life. The informant's language life history provides insight into the ways in which immigrants who come to the United States live and adapt to a new country, culture, and language. The informant's narrative is a testimony of a person divided between two languages and two cultures. The methods used to elaborate the informant's language life history were ethnographic interviewing, observing, and event/network analysis. This language life history will promote understanding of issues such as bilingualism and its relationship to immigration in the United States, language maintenance or loss, language shift, and language choice and use. In the area of Teaching English as a Second Language, teachers are constantly faced with the above issues in their teaching environment. A more thorough comprehension of the experiences of second language learners could improve the skills of those teaching English as a Second Language.
Rights
In Copyright. URI: http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/ This Item is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use this Item in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/28070
Recommended Citation
Alvarez, Alexandra Guerra, ""A Listening Child." The Language Life History of an American of Mexican Descent" (1994). Dissertations and Theses. Paper 4820.
https://doi.org/10.15760/etd.6696
Comments
If you are the rightful copyright holder of this dissertation or thesis and wish to have it removed from the Open Access Collection, please submit a request to pdxscholar@pdx.edu and include clear identification of the work, preferably with URL