The purpose of this study is to examine the narrative accounts (De Fina, 2009) of third-generation (3G) Mexican-Americans, as they aim to excuse their English monolingualism in contexts that have reinforced the ideology that they should speak native-like Spanish. Traditionally, studies that have investigated the intergenerational disappearance of Spanish by the 3G have focused on how parents and grandparents have socialized the 3G to use or not use Spanish, without much attention to the 3G themselves. The present study aims to extend this line of research by analyzing the narrated and recontexutalized interactions that the 3G claims have resulted in the attrition of Spanish in their respective families. Through the theoretical frameworks of indexicality (Ochs, 1992) and imagined communities (Anderson, 1991), the findings indicate that the participants index linguistic insecurity (Preston, 2013) when they recount using Spanish with their generational predecessors, whom they construct as having a stronger nativist orientation. Such insecurity emanates from the unattainable goal to speak native-like Spanish, which is exacerbated by familial teasing. These speakers’ negative selfperception consequently leads to their withdrawal from imagined communities of Spanish owners, contributing to the intergenerational loss of Spanish.
A Study of Linguistic Insecurity among Turkish Teachers of English
