scholarly journals Understanding Heritage Language Learners’ Critical Language Awareness (CLA) in Mixed Language Programs

Languages ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 37
Author(s):  
Laura Gasca Jiménez ◽  
Sergio Adrada-Rafael
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Ideologies ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Language Programs ◽  
Mixed Language ◽  
Critical Language Awareness ◽  
Upper Level

Despite the prevalence of mixed language programs across the United States, their impact on the unique socio-affective needs of heritage language (HL) students has not been researched sufficiently. Therefore, the present study examines HL learners’ critical language awareness (CLA) in a mixed Spanish undergraduate program at a small private university in the eastern United States. Sixteen HL learners enrolled in different Spanish upper-level courses participated in the study. Respondents completed an existing questionnaire to measure CLA, which includes 19 Likert-type items addressing different areas, such as language variation, language ideologies, bilingualism, and language maintenance. Overall, the results show that learners in the mixed language program under study have “somewhat high” and “high” levels of CLA. The increased levels of CLA in learners who had completed three courses or more in the program, coupled with their strong motivation, suggests that this program contributes positively toward HL students’ CLA. However, respondents’ answers also reveal standard language ideologies, as well as the personal avoidance of code-switching. Based on these findings, two areas that could benefit from a wider representation in the curriculum of mixed language programs are discussed: language ideologies and plurilingual language practices.

Theorizing Linguistic Racisms from a Language Ideological Perspective

2020 ◽  
pp. 67-89
Author(s):  
Paul V. Kroskrity
Keyword(s):  
Language Ideologies ◽  
Theoretical Orientation ◽  
Special Kind ◽  
The United States ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
Social Hierarchies ◽  
Colonial State ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Critical Language Awareness ◽  
Political Economic

Previous scholarship has linked the promotion of racializing projects to the larger political economic contexts of nation-states and their role in (re-)producing social hierarchies. Language, in the form of language ideologies (Kroskrity 2016), linguistic forms, and discursive practices, provides a special kind of resource in such racializing projects because it contributes not only overtly but also covertly to the hierarchical production of social inequality. This study builds on prior language ideological studies of linguistic racism in the United States (e.g., Hill 2008) and demonstrates how this theoretical orientation reveals patterns of overt and covert racism that derive from speakers’ consciousness across a continuum ranging from practical consciousness (Kroskrity 1998) to critical language awareness (Alim 2010). Language ideological data, including the publications of “salvage era” academic researchers, disclose a sector on the spectrum of linguistic racisms directed specifically at indigenous people and their culture by a settler-colonial state and its citizens.

Critical language awareness for the heritage context: Development and validation of a measurement questionnaire

2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 573-594 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sara Beaudrie ◽  
Angelica Amezcua ◽  
Sergio Loza
Keyword(s):  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Reliability And Validity ◽  
The United States ◽  
Central Component ◽  
Language Awareness ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Forces ◽  
Critical Language Awareness ◽  
Development And Validation

Critical language awareness (CLA) is increasingly identified as a central component of the Spanish heritage language (SHL) classroom (Leeman, 2005; Martínez, 2003; among others). As a minority language, SHL is subject to sociopolitical, cultural, and economic forces that devalue its status. It is devalued in the eyes of the public, as a legitimate U.S. language, and as something worthy of being maintained. It is essential that students receive instruction not only in the heritage language, but also on the contextual factors that affect the Spanish-English sociopolitical relationship in the United States. Such instruction will enable learners to begin resisting heritage language loss by questioning language ideologies that promote English monolingualism and standard, monolingual Spanish as the ideal norm. The aim of this study was to develop a questionnaire with adequate psychometric properties to measure CLA in the SHL context. The respondents were 301 students enrolled in SHL courses in four U.S. universities. The questionnaire results were submitted to a series of statistical analysis to investigate how well the instrument meets the criteria of reliability and validity specified in this study. The final 19-item instrument had adequate psychometric properties and detected change in the CLA of students in a class where CLA was taught.

System-wide seismic vulnerability of aging multiple-span multiple-girder bridges in low-to-moderate seismic hazard regions

2021 ◽  
Vol 37 (1_suppl) ◽  
pp. 1626-1651
Author(s):  
John E Lens M.EERI ◽  
Mandar M Dewoolkar ◽  
Eric M Hernandez M.EERI
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Seismic Hazard ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Seismic Vulnerability ◽  
Time History ◽  
The United States ◽  
National Database ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Girder Bridges ◽  
The Status

This article describes the approach, methods, and findings of a quantitative analysis of the seismic vulnerability in low-to-moderate seismic hazard regions of the Central and Eastern United States for system-wide assessment of typical multiple span bridges built in the 1950s through the 1960s. There is no national database on the status of seismic vulnerability of bridges, and thus no means to estimate the system-wide damage and retrofit costs for bridges. The study involved 380 nonlinear analyses using actual time-history records matched to four representative low-to-medium hazard target spectra corresponding with peak ground accelerations from approximately 0.06 to 0.3 g. Ground motions were obtained from soft and stiff site seismic classification locations and applied to models of four typical multiple-girder with concrete bent bridges. Multiple-girder bridges are the largest single category, comprising 55% of all multiple span bridges in the United States. Aging and deterioration effects were accounted for using reduced cross-sections representing fully spalled conditions and compared with pristine condition results. The research results indicate that there is an overall low likelihood of significant seismic damage to these typical bridges in such regions, with the caveat that certain bridge features such as more extensive deterioration, large skews, and varied bent heights require bridge-specific analysis. The analysis also excludes potential damage resulting from liquefaction, flow-spreading, or abutment slumping due to weak foundation or abutment soils.

Force, Fraud, and Coercion—What Do They Mean? A Study of Victimization Experiences in a New Destination Latino Sex Trafficking Network

2016 ◽  
Vol 13 (5) ◽  
pp. 456-476 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lauren Copley Sabon
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
Social Constructionism ◽  
Sex Trafficking ◽  
The United States ◽  
Social Forces ◽  
Eastern United States ◽  
Latina Immigrants ◽  
Strict Interpretation ◽  
New Destination

In response to increasing Latino new destination migration in the United States, Latino sex trafficking networks have emerged in many of these areas. This article examines victimization experiences of Latina immigrants trafficked by a regional network operating in the Eastern United States drawn from law enforcement records and interviews with legal actors involved in the criminal case. The stories shared with law enforcement by the Latina victims gives insight into their lives, experiences in prostitution, and the operation of a trafficking/prostitution network (all lacking in the literature). Through the analytical frame of social constructionism, this research highlights how strict interpretation of force, fraud, coercion, and agency used to define “severe forms of trafficking” in the TVPA limits its ability to recognize many victimization experiences in trafficking situations at the hands of traffickers. The forms of coercion used in the criminal enterprise under study highlights the numerous ways it can be wielded (even without a physical presence) and its malleability as a concept despite legal definitional rigidity. The lack of legal recognition of the plurality of lived experiences in which agency and choice can be mitigated by social forces, structural violence, intersectional vulnerabilities, and the actions of others contributes to the scholarly critique of issues prosecuting trafficking cases under the TVPA and its strict legal definitions.

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