Comparison: The Relationship Between Chicano English And Standard American English

The Relationship Between Chicano English and Standard American English Chicano English (ChE), also known as Mexican American Language (MAL), is a distinctive US English dialect spoken in the Southwestern United States (PBS). Not all members of a Mexican-American community speak Chicano English; there a wide spectrum of styles incorporated, as is the case with other dialects, including Standard American English (PBS). Chicano English is often monolingual speakers of English that learned the language like most children growing up in the US. Many speakers of ChE may not know how to speak Spanish, which is not always considered due to the influence of Spanish. When comparing ChE and SAE, the differences among features are largely due to the Spanish influence of ChE (PBS). These differences between features of ChE an SAE can exist at the phonological level. Chicano speakers whose native language is Spanish may substitute the Spanish vowel system for the English where both words ship and sheep are pronounced like sheep (Fromkin et al., 2011). Other distinctions involve consonants. The digraphs /ch/ and /sh/ are interchanged so that shook is pronounced as if spelled with a /ch/ and check spelled /sh/ (Fromkin et al., 2011). Another is the substitution of /th/ for /t/ in the beginning of words, so thin …show more content…
Many of the sounds of ChE resemble those of SAE but are typically influenced by Spanish pronunciation. One specific feature that is present in both varieties is the word-final alveolar-cluster reduction where the word fast is pronounced as if it were spelled fass (Fromkin et al., 2011). Another like feature includes the loss of a consonant cluster at the end of a word. For example, missed pronounced as miss in ChE (Fromkin et al., 2011). Since the words are pronounced similairly in both variations, the intelligabilty of the spoken forms are generally maintained and can be understood by speakers from both