talking spanish english

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Talking Both Languages: 20Perspectives on the Use of Spanish and

English Inside and Outside theWorkplace

Laura Callahan

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, The City College ofNew York, New York, NY, USA

Strategies for deciding which language to use when forms part of the sociolinguisticcompetence of speakers who can speak more than one language. Language choicesare shaped by a number of factors, including linguistic proficiency of both speakerand interlocutor, the ingroup or outgroup status of each, and the setting in which anexchange takes place. Language choices in the workplace are further influenced bycompany policies and by the asymmetrical power dynamic in worker

customer

interactions. This paper reports on interviews with 20 Latino workers who each useSpanish and English in a different workplace in New York City. Participants wereasked about their use of the two languages with customers, coworkers andsupervisors in the workplace, and with friends, family members and strangersoutside the workplace. The major themes that emerged from the interviews arepresented, including some commonalities found with other studies of language pairsin the commercial setting.

Keywords: ingroup versus outgroup, language choice, language ideology,sociolinguistic competence, Spanish and English in the USA, workplace

Introduction

This paper reports on the reflections of 20 individuals with regard to theiruse of Spanish and English in the workplace and elsewhere. The research wasundertaken as part of a larger project entitled Language Choice in InterethnicCommunication: Spanish and English in Urban Service Encounters. Datacollection for the parent project includes anonymous encounters betweenservice workers and researchers posing as customers, and passive or

participant observation in selected workplaces. It will thus produce quantita-tive data based on observed behaviour. The present study offers triangulationof those results with qualitative data based on reported behaviour. Thepurpose of the interviews was to discover what factors dictate language choicein the workplace, and what differences there are between choosing Spanish orEnglish at work as opposed to outside of work.

Sociolinguistic competence

Having communicative, or sociolinguistic, competence involves havingknowledge of the social rules governing the appropriate use of a language in avariety of contexts (Hymes, 1972). A speaker with such competence controls

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not only basic grammatical structures, but also the address system, locutionsfor greeting and leave-taking and other formulas, both verbal and nonverbal.He or she must have an awareness of which topics may be discussed when, bywhom and with whom. These variables are influenced by several factors, such

as the speech situation and the age, gender and socioeconomic status of bothspeaker and addressee (e.g. Tsitsipis, 1989). A speaker with a reasonabledegree of communicative competence also knows which register or degree offormality to use for most situations.

Having the ability to speak more than one language adds an importantdimension to communicative competence. A speaker who knows more thanone language has to decide which language to use when. Such speakers meetthis challenge in different ways, but, as we will see, there are some commonrules and strategies. This paper focuses on ingroup members: all 20 of theinterviewees were members of a Latino ethnic group.1 An outgroup member

using a community language may encounter a different reception, and musttherefore follow different rules than a speaker who is judged to be a member ofthe ingroup (Bernsten, 1994; Callahan, 2004; SanAntonio, 1988: 36; Weyers,1999; Woolard, 1989). Outgroup members have to be able to determine whenreciprocal rather than anticipatory codeswitching is more appropriate. In otherwords, when not to initiate conversation in a minority language, but to waitfor ingroup members to do so. Some of the rules that are in force in othersituations may be suspended for outgroup members engaged in a serviceencounter, at which time their categorisation as outsiders may be overriddenby their customer status.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were conducted in March and April of 2004.There were eight men and twelve women, ranging in age from 18 to 48, with amedian age of 21.2 Sixteen of the interviews were conducted in English and fourin Spanish.3 This was a convenience rather than random sample; participantswere recruited with fliers and by word of mouth at a four-year commutercollege in New York City. Prior to the on-campus recruitment, unsuccessfulattempts were made to recruit workers directly from commercial establish-

ments. Hence, all of the interviewees were students who also held or hadrecently held positions off-campus. Although all of the interviewees werestudents, the college from which students were recruited has a very working-class student population. Various types of workplaces were represented, from beauty salon to supermarket to car rental agency to law office. At eachinformants worksite, Spanish and English were used on a regular basis withcustomers and coworkers. The structure common to service encounters acrossbusiness types is considered to be sufficiently uniform, notwithstanding minorvariations between one type of store and another. Hence, the heterogeneity ofthe workplace type is not considered to be an obstacle to the generalisations that

will be made about worker customer and worker worker language selection.Interviewees were asked closed and open-ended questions to elicit

information about their use of Spanish and English. In addition, they wereshown photographs of eight people, each one of whom represented an age:

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under 30 and over 30, a gender, and an ethnic group: Latino or non-Latino. Theinterviewees were asked to comment on what their language choices would beif they were to participate in an exchange with each one of the eightindividuals pictured.

Results

In this section the major themes that emerged from the interviews arepresented. The terms interviewee, informant and worker are used inter-changeably, and Spanish and English are referred to as opposite languages.

Workers follow different language choice rules in the workplace

The workplace represents a setting distinct from many others, and workersfollow a different set of parameters when deciding which language to usethere. A worker may have to modify his or her personal language choices whether these be dictated by ideologies or intuition to comply withworkplace policies or to please the customer. For example, a worker whomight use knowledge of the community and of the physical appearance andspeech characteristics to identify Spanish speakers may suspend thesetechniques at work in favour of automatic English use, at least at the initiationof an encounter.

Answering in the opposite language is a dispreferred response in theworkplace. Workers recognise the negative affective consequences of notfollowing a customers language choice once the latter makes this known.4

Asked to comment on a situation in which the customer addressed the workerfirst, 18 of the 20 interviewees stated that they would answer in Spanish ifaddressed in Spanish, regardless of the customers ethnicity. One interviewee,when asked to confirm that she would answer in Spanish if addressed inSpanish by hypothetical customers of various ethnic appearances, seemedincredulous at the question. Of course! she said. You know, theyrecustomers, so youve got to be nice to the customer (103). Another intervieweeechoed this, stating that he would respond in Spanish to any customer whoaddressed him in that language because theyre the customer (006). Thisparameter imposes itself in exchanges between strangers; in conversationswith co-workers, friends and family members less significance is attached toanswering in English when addressed in Spanish, or vice versa:

(1) Researcher: And how about the reverse, have you ever found yourselfanswering in English when someone speaks to you inSpanish, someone addresses you in Spanish.

Informant: To my mom.Researcher: Any situations with strangers that youve done that?Informant: Strangers?Researcher: Or with, you know, with non-family members in other

situations?Informant: That they speak in Spanish and I answer them in English?Researcher: Right.Informant: No, not with strangers. (104)

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All participants either implicitly or explicitly acknowledged the assumptionthat accommodation to an interlocutors language choice is the preferredresponse. More language accommodation takes place in the workplace thanoutside the workplace. In (2), for example, a worker who reported switching to

Spanish as needed for her own customers comprehension recounted anincident in which she herself was the customer and she declined toaccommodate to the dominant language of her interlocutors, even whendoing so would have facilitated communication:

(2) Researcher: Do you, um, if somebody speaks to you in English that ishard to understand, do you ever switch to Spanish?

Informant: Work situations, definitely. But when Im outside, and Idont know why I do this, I, I guess um, I dont know, in asense Im resentful because of the fact that, they, I dont

know, I judge them. Im, Im, its horrible. But it doesnt, I, Idont speak to them in Spanish right away.Researcher: So youre talking about in what type of situation?Informant: In a situation where Im on the street or Im in a grocery

store. This happened the other day. Im in a grocery storeand Im asking for cayenne pepper. They have no clue whatcayenne pepper is. I was like, OK, where are your condi-ments? They have no clue what it is that I mean bycondiments. So, Im frustrated because they dont under-stand, and I should speak Spanish right away, but Im like

[sighs], and I get really mad and I just walk away, and justlook for the condiments myself. I tend to do that in thestreet. I get annoyed that, I dont know, I mean, I know thatits wrong because I shouldnt judge a person, you knowperhaps theyve been here one year or two, but I just, Imjust to the belief that you should try to move outside of yourneighborhood. (104)

Workers are sensitive to and will accommodate the language proficiency orlanguage preferences of interlocutors in the workplace more than they may bewilling to do in other situations. Seventeen (85%) of the interviewees statedthat they would switch to Spanish with a customer or coworker who spoke tothem in nonfluent English. Language proficiency and preference do notalways coincide, and workers are aware of this. Several mentioned that theywould ask first whether the person preferred to speak Spanish, and that theywould continue the conversation in English if their interlocutor wished topractice English. In (3), an informant described the language display techniquehe used to offer assistance to second language English speakers in a non-face-threatening manner:

(3) . . . if I see them [having] difficulty, I dont know if theyre trying to use the

language, because they studied the language, they came to the US, theywant to really practice it, or they dont know I know Spanish. So I jump inwith a Spanish word so they could hear the Spanish word and they canunderstand it. So I use it every time I see the person having difficulty with



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the language. Because, like I said before, people are very sensitive with that,because they study it and then they want to use it. (001)

When approached by persons speaking nonfluent Spanish, some workersreported that they do not switch to English, because they assign a voluntarymotive to the persons use of Spanish, and assume that the person wishes topractice using the language. Note this differential treatment in (4):

(4) Researcher: Si alguien te habla en ingles, y es difcil de entender, suingles, cambias tu al espanol para contestarle?

Informant: S, por supuesto, s. Si yo veo que esa persona luce comohispana, entonces s, inmediatamente.

Researcher: Y al reves, si alguien te habla en un espanol que es difcil deentender, cambiaras tu al ingles?

Informant: No, realmente, cuando las personas hablan espanol, es

porque quieren practicar su, tal vez estan estudiandoespanol y quieren practicarlo, entonces por lo general tengomucha paciencia con ellos.. . . Si le quiero decir algo quequiero que entiendan bien, se lo digo en ingles y entoncesotra vez al espanol otra vez. (101)

Researcher: If someone speaks to you in English, and its hard tounderstand, their English, do you switch to Spanish toanswer them?

Informant: Yes, of course, yes. If I see that that person looks Hispanic,

then yes, immediately.Researcher: And the other way around, if someone speaks to you in

Spanish thats hard to understand, would you change toEnglish?

Informant: No, really, when people speak Spanish, its because theywant to practice their, maybe theyre studying Spanish andthey want to practice it, so I generally have a lot of patiencewith them.. . . If I want to tell them something that I wantthem to understand well, I tell them in English and then[switch] back to Spanish again. (my translation)

In contrast, a person speaking English as a second language, perhapsnonfluently, is more likely to be doing so because of its status as the defaultlanguage for public encounters. Nevertheless, other workers stated that theywould automatically switch to English if addressed in nonfluent Spanish.Fewer of the workers had had this experience; being addressed in nonfluentEnglish was more common.

When workers will address a customer in Spanish

Ethnicity of interlocutor, as determined by physical appearance, has been

observed to determine which language is selected by adults and by children asyoung as two (e.g. Genessee, 2003; Schiffman, 2002; Villa, 2002; Zentella, 1997).In many cases language choice is a form of accommodation, based on whatknowledge the speaker has about the linguistic competence of the person he or



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she is talking to. Assumptions about linguistic competence similar toassumptions about ethnicity are often based on appearance. In cases wherethe addressee is known to have proficiency in more than one language, thespeaker is likely to select whichever one is supposed to be the addressees

native language, or the one which is most associated with the addresseesethnic group.

The corpus was almost evenly split between workers who stated that theirdefault language to initiate any encounter was English, and those who saidthey would address someone in Spanish if the person appeared to be Hispanic,as in (5) and (6):

(5) Researcher: . . . you might address them in Spanish?Informant: Yeah, sometimes, yeah, like if they look, like really Hispanic

or something, and I know they would speak Spanish. (106)

(6) Researcher: When you, when you decide what language, if you everhave to talk to somebody before theyve spoken to you yet,youre the one whos initiating it, how do you decide . . .

Informant: By the way they look. If they look, I dont know how, but ifthey look like, more Hispanic, I will, like I, I dont know, Iguess the way they look, if they, I dont know, I kind ofknow, like, who will speak Spanish. (111)

Tokens (7) and (8) show that workers also take cues from customersconversation among themselves to decide which language to use:

(7) Also, yeah, if I, also if I hear them speak to someone theyre with speakingSpanish then I will approach them in Spanish. (111)

(8) If I hear that theyre talking in a certain language, then Ill talk to them inthat language. (003)

These workers ingroup status makes such an approach fairly unproblematic.Nevertheless, as discussed in the next section, workers language choicesoccasionally encounter obstacles.

When workers make a mistake in predicting a customers languagepreference

This is most relevant when the worker decides to initiate an exchange inSpanish, as English-initiated exchanges that meet with incomprehension areeasily repaired. All workers stated that they would simply switch to Spanish ifa customer indicated incomprehension or responded in Spanish to theworkers English. The negative consequences are greater when a workerchooses Spanish to address a customer who does not speak Spanish or doesnot wish to speak it because the selection of Spanish entails a greater socialrisk than the selection of the default language, English. The workers selection

of Spanish carries several possible implications. One is that the workerconsiders him or herself to share membership in a group with the customer.Other implications are that the customer prefers to be attended to in Spanish, isfluent in Spanish, and perhaps does not speak English. The workers selection



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of English carries fewer implications, because it is the default language whichcan be used even in predominantly non-English-speaking communities in theUSA as a starting point in a commercial encounter (Weyers, 1999).

When the workers prediction of the customers language preference is

accurate, the rewards for speaking Spanish can be considerable: improvedcomprehension, a sense of solidarity and overall increased customer satisfac-tion. But the costs, in the case of an inaccurate prediction, can also be higher.The use of Spanish may carry the implication, noted above, that ones listenercannot speak English. This was expressed by an interviewee who describedher experiences being addressed in Spanish (see also example 12, below):

(9) Informant: Well, when I was young, people noticed that I was Spanish,you know, and they would automatically talk to me inEnglish, I mean in Spanish. Yeah. They would, yeah, liketheyd look at me and then automatically talk in Spanish,theyd automatically assume

. . .

Researcher: When you were a child?Informant: No, even in high school. Yeah, they would look at me and

say that Im Spanish, you know, so theyd start speaking tome in Spanish you know, thinking that I dont know anyEnglish.

Researcher: So what situations, like what kind of people, friends, peoplein, like store clerks?

Informant: Like staff from school, you know, people who work in theschool, um jobs, past jobs, friends, you know, people that Iknow from other, through other people, might speak to me inSpanish automatically or just people in the street who wantto ask me something, you know.

Researcher: And so how would you react?Informant: I would react, well, automatically, I would think, Oh,

he thinks I dont know English. But yes, I would just replyback in Spanish. Or sometimes in English just to show themthat I know English. (108)

An incorrect assumption that a customer is capable of speaking Spanish can

cause embarrassment, threatening the face of both the worker and thecustomer. Both parties apologise: the worker for placing the customer in aposition in which he or she must admit to the lack of a skill, and the customerfor forcing the worker to change languages:

(10) . . . they dont speak Spanish so then theyre like, Ah, theyll just be likereally, Oh, I dont speak Spanish, and then Ill be like, Oh, Imsorry . . . I started out in Spanish but then theyre like, Oh, no, I dontspeak Spanish, sorry. (005)

The three workers who mentioned this situation said it arose when they

categorised a customer as Hispanic based on physical appearance. Two wouldtake the customers profession of a lack of Spanish-speaking ability at facevalue, one ascribing it to the persons having been raised in the USA, andaccepting that, in the words of one worker, theres a lot of Hispanic people



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that they, even though they look Hispanic, they dont speak Spanish (005). Butthe third worker expressed disbelief in one customers profession of ignorance:

(11) . . . una vez le hable a una senora en espanol, y ella no hablabaespanol . . . ella dijo que no hablaba espanol, y yo me quede sorprendida.Ella pareca que hablara espanol. Y ella [dijo] No, yo no hablo espanol.Pero yo me quede pensando que ella hablaba espanol y tal vez no legustaba hablarlo . . . Porque ella . . . pareca dominicana. (1010)

. . . one time I spoke to a lady in Spanish, and she didnt speakSpanish . . . she said that she didnt speak Spanish, and I was surprised.She looked like she would speak Spanish. And she [said], No, I dontspeak Spanish. But I got the feeling that she did speak Spanish andmaybe she didnt like to speak it. Because she . . . looked Dominican. (mytranslation)

If this workers intuition were correct, it could mean that her customer wishedto distance herself from shared membership in a group with the worker.

When workers answer in the opposite language

Lo (1999: 472) shows how English is used to rebuff outgroup use ofan ingroup language. Hers was a study of two young Asian American menin Los Angeles, one of whom was a Chinese American learner of Korean,and the other was Korean American. Pedraza, in his 1987 study of the

Puerto Rican community of East Harlem, noted that in age asymmetricalintraethnic interactions, the younger person would respond in the language inwhich he or she was addressed. In peer exchanges, adolescents would oftenanswer each other in English even if addressed in Spanish, assuming that theinterlocutor was part of the group, or at least familiar enough so that thiswould not be taken as an insult (Pedraza, 1987: 38).5 In other words, to useEnglish after being addressed in Spanish could be considered offensive, unlessthe degree of intimacy between addressor and addressee allowed for suchliberties.

Workers are much more apt to report answering in the language opposite

from the one in which they were addressed when the addressee is someoneknown to them, such as a co-worker, friend, or relative. Seventeen (85%) of theworkers reported differential behaviour in this regard when the addressor wasa customer. In other words, while they acknowledged switching languagesbetween turns with co-workers, friends and family members, they stated thatthey would always follow a customers language choice, responding inwhatever language the customer used first.

The three workers who reported that they had or would answer acustomer in the opposite language were all referring to an exchange inwhich a non-Latino customer were to address them in Spanish. Each alluded

to the customers proficiency in Spanish as the factor that woulddetermine whether or not they would respond in the same language. Twostated that they would continue the conversation in English if the personsSpanish were not fluent, whereas one worker said she would do this only to



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give a brief display of her English-speaking ability for the customer, beforereturning to Spanish:

(12) If its like good, good Spanish, you know, if theyre fluent, fluent inSpanish, otherwise if I see that theyre probably stereotyping me, then,you know, to speak to me in Spanish, but they dont really speak[Spanish], Ill continue in English so I could, so they can know that Ispeak English, yeah. Like if they speak broken up Spanish just to try tohelp me, then Ill answer them in English, [and] whichever language theyfeel comfortable [in], Ill continue. (111)

Nonreciprocal language choice was reported to take place most often in non-work settings. In some cases, informants would answer a friend or familymember in Spanish after being addressed in English, even if their interlocutordid not understand Spanish. However, there were more reports of answering in

Spanish when addressed in English by a Spanish speaker. Referring tofellow members of an organisation for young Dominicans, an intervieweereports:

(13) . . . muchas veces ellos hablan ingles, porque les es mas facil expresarseen ingles. Y yo contesto en espanol porque yo se que ellos entienden.(109)

. . . a lot of times they speak English, because its easier for them toexpress themselves in English. And I answer in Spanish because I knowthat they understand. (my translation)

Workers mentioned two main causes for nonreciprocal response: the ability toaccess vocabulary faster in one language, or what they termed confusion. Thevocabulary motive is illustrated in (14) and (15), and the confusion as a causeis illustrated in (16). Specific concepts were mentioned to illustrate the firsttype of scenario:

(14) Researcher: Do you ever answer in Spanish when somebody speaks toyou in English?

Informant: Math. Like if its a, like a quantity, I still, I cant do math in

English. (104)Again, a non-work situation and familiarity with interlocutors makes a languagechange more likely to occur. Both factors are noted by the informant in (15):

(15) Researcher: . . . if somebody speaks to you in English, do you everanswer in Spanish?

Informant: No.Researcher: Not necessarily with customers, but with co-workers?Informant: Yeah, Ill speak Spanglish, yeah definitely, everybody that

knows both languages and theyre amongst themselves,

sometime you forget a word in one language. You go intothe Spanish or vice versa.

Researcher: How about the reverse, if somebody, do you ever answer inEnglish . . .



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Informant: Usually, that happens more. Usually my parents talk to me;oh, you want to know about at work? (001)

The instances that workers ascribed to confusion generally included animmediately previous conversation in which they were speaking the oppositelanguage. For example:

(16) Oh, that happens to me, when, for example, after a meeting or when Imdoing a lot of things, or when I, when Ive been speaking English all day,and then somebody speaks Spanish to me, then I answer in Englishbecause Ive, Ive been speaking English or listening to English and doingeverything in the English language, and so . . . when a person asksme something in Spanish then I will answer in English. Its happened tome many times. Or when I pick up the phone and somebody asks mesomething in Spanish, then I answer in English. (102)

English as a neutral language

As noted above, English can be used as a starting point when the speaker iseither uncertain of the addressees language preference, or is prevented fromusing it by other factors. In the USA and in many other parts of the world,English has become a neutral language, a code that can be used to avoidwhatever implications may result from choosing a more identity-ladenlanguage (Bernsten, 1994). Eight of the interviewees reported that they woulduse English to initiate any first-time encounter with customers, and a ninth

said he would do so unless he heard the customer speaking Spanish tocompanions.6

English as the language of work

Informants reported switching from Spanish to English within the work-place in response to a topic or task change. As illustrated in (17) (20), a workermight joke and discuss personal matters with co-workers in Spanish, butswitch to English to discuss business, participate in a meeting or handle a co-operative task:

(17) Informant: I dont know, like, for me English is more professional, itslike, yeah, like this gets the job done, this language. I use mySpanish like, for my down time, to relax, and have fun, andgoof around, thats how I feel. So it depends on what I haveto do. If we have a job, we have a task, were talkingEnglish.

Researcher: Even with people who speak Spanish.Informant: Right. But if we have some down time, and we relax, theres

no customers, and were just fixing the store, we start jokingaround, we talk Spanish. More relaxed.

(18) Informant: The attorney, hes my supervisor, trial counsel, and hespeaks exclusively to me in Spanish and I answer him inEnglish.

Researcher: Do you know why you answer him in English?



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Informant: No. It just happens. It just naturally happens. Now whenwere talking, if its business. If were talking on a personalbasis, you know, something personal about myself, or evengossiping, then we both speak Spanish.

Researcher: Oh, OK. So maybe topic.Informant: Yes. Depending, I guess, on the topic and maybe the

seriousness of the matter, but when I was gossiping withhim recently, it was Spanish. All the way. All the way. Butthen when the conversation shifted onto something, it wentright back. Him Spanish and me English. (112)

(19) . . . with my supervisors, I speak more English. Most of the time, like,more than with my co-workers... when I speak to my co-workers itsmostly things that I did or we did and, you know. And when I speak tomy supervisor its business or something so I will have to, I speak tothem in English. I dont know why. (111)

(20) I speak sometimes Spanish, sometime English, but when its a meeting,when I have a meeting, or when I pick up the phone or whensomebody else is coming, I speak English. Or if there is somebody else besides my boss and the super . . . the coordinator. Because they, they both speak Spanish. Because we are, three of us who speak Spanish.But if there is somebody else, we, we speak English, or if there is ameeting or, you know, when I pick up the phone, its English. (102)

While all of the workers interviewed were expected to attend to customers inSpanish whenever the need arose, half had been told not to speak Spanishwith coworkers in the presence of non-Spanish-speaking coworkers or in thepresence of customers. These were not official company policies, but weremade clear to the workers nonetheless7:

(21) Researcher: At this job, or at another job in your life, can you rememberanyone ever telling you to speak only English?

Informant: Yes. This job does it a lot. [Company name] does that a lot.And I used to work at my other jobs, yeah, and [companyname] does that a lot. A lot of places do it.

Researcher: So, is, is it like a policy, a supervisor says that?Informant: Yeah, supervisors. Like, I read the rule books, they make

you read the rule books before you start working at theseplaces. And nowhere in the rulebook do they say: Youmust speak English.

Researcher: Its not written down.Informant: Yeah. Like at this job, due to the fact that were interna-

tional, we got all international people. They prefer you talkin two languages, but they dont like you talking, when its,when you have to be professional about it.

Researcher: So they only want you to use it. . .

Informant: When its necessary. When its necessary.Researcher: So theres sort of, it sounds like theres kind of an

unwritten policy.



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Informant: Yeah.Researcher: At this job and at other jobs youve had, too.Informant: Yeah. Stick to the English. (001)

Some of the workers expressed their attitudes toward these restrictions, but forthe most part they were reported without evaluation:

(22) No, yeah it was the manager. It was on Upper West Side, in astore, . . . and she speaks Spanish, thats her first language. And shewas just like, no, we cant speak Spanish here in the store, even if youwant to talk to me in Spanish. So sometimes, you know, it happenedthat I would speak Spanish to her, so when I talked to her she wouldanswer me in English, then shed say, remember we arent speaking,we dont speak Spanish here. And I was just like, OK. But, youknow I, I felt uncomfortable because she speaks Spanish. Shes

Spanish. (102)(23) Well, at my job, actually, I basically got hired because I speak Spanish, but

when Im with, like an employee break room, or at a meeting with otherpeople that dont speak Spanish, Im not allowed to speak Spanish. Likeif Im with a friend and some other person, whoever it is, anotheremployee, that doesnt speak Spanish, I have that conflict, I cant speakSpanish to my friend, because that other person is there, so Im restricted.But if its to the customers or job-related, I can. (107)

(24) Researcher: Have you ever had the experience of, on a job, being told

not to speak Spanish, to speak only English?Informant: Well, actually, yeah, I was, for example, because my other

co-workers, they speak Spanish also, and sometimes, youknow, Ill be actually trying to talk Spanish with them.Were from the same country. But the uh, employer, heactually tells us that when somebody who looks white, oryou should be trying to have your conversation in English,that way they wont feel weird about it, or that way, thecustomer doesnt think that youre talking about them, orsomething like that. So actually he said, Oh, when some-

body comes like that, you should actually talk English, thatway they can actually know what youre talking about.And they wont feel like, OK, like, theyre talking badabout you. (006)

The interviewees who had never been subject to language restrictions workedfor the most part in predominately Spanish-speaking environments.

The language workers prefer to speak in the workplace

Workplace language preferences seemed to be for the most part driven by

relative proficiency and utility: the worker expressed a preference for thelanguage in which he or she felt most comfortable, or the one used by most ofthe other workers.8 But there were exceptions. Two interviewees saw work asan opportunity to practice their English; one of these two workers also saw his



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current job, at which there were many Spanish-speaking customers, as anopportunity to maintain his Spanish. Language ideologies were also ex-pressed. One informant stated that she used English as the base language forattending to all customers, changing to Spanish only when necessary for

comprehension. Whereas such a practice was mandated at some of theinterviewees workplaces, in this case it was the informants personal choice:

(25) . . . if they dont understand something, then Ill ask them if language is aproblem, and Ill explain to them in Spanish. But I choose to speakEnglish because I think its very important that people from LatinAmerica or anyone, just anyone that knows another language, that iftheyre going to be living here that they should know English. (104)

Twelve (60%) of the interviewees had been hired in part for their ability tospeak Spanish, but none had ever received a salary differential. Although their

ability did not translate into higher wages, some of the workers did express afeeling of satisfaction at being able to help customers and enhance the qualityof the service encounter via the use of Spanish.

(26) Well, I have a lot of positive things when I speak Spanish because I workin retail. So in retail, I work in Times Square, and theres a lot of tourists.So my good experience is getting to know people from different placesaround the world. And because I can communicate with them in Spanish,they come back to me and they really appreciate me, because they dontfind anybody that can talk Spanish sometimes, so they feel uncomfor-

table. So they come back to me, and its a good experience, I really find,like they enjoy it when they find out I speak Spanish. (001)

(27) I help them out because I speak Spanish. Like I get to, to help morecustomers, to help translate if anybody needs anything, or, you know,its more useful . . . Because I speak Spanish its more, Im more able to doit. (107)

Spanish as the language of intergenerational communication

For outside the workplace, workers reported the highest use of Spanishwith their mothers. In most cases the mothers lack of proficiency in Englishwas cited, but one informant, a person who refused to speak Spanish withnonfamily members unless it were unavoidable, also refused to speak Englishwith her mother, who was fluent in both languages. Fourteen (70%) of theworkers reported speaking only or mostly Spanish with their parents, andeither 50 50 Spanish and English or more English than Spanish with people oftheir own generation, whether these were siblings, friends or coworkers.

Workers reported being more apt to address younger customers in English,regardless of ethnic appearance. When shown the photographs of the eight

hypothetical customers, workers who said that they would address an olderLatino man or woman in Spanish said that they would address all of theyounger people in English. The excerpts in (28) and (29) illustrate thisassociation between youth and the use of English:



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(28) Most of the time its more English than Spanish, its more like youth-oriented . . . Probably because theyre younger, youll probably catchwhat theyre saying more easily. Probably theyll speak English andSpanish. (002)

(29). . .

it depends on the situation. For example, if I see a young person,Hispanic, for example, my age, I usually talk to them in English becausesometimes I feel more comfortable, and they could feel more comfor-table, and we could communicate better. But if its like, for example, anold, an older person, like usually most of the time we speak, we talk inEnglish, I mean, sorry, in Spanish. (006)

Race, ethnicity and language

A California high school student of Vietnamese ethnicity who learnedSpanish reports, . . . people are like, Why is this Asian girl speakingSpanish? (San Jose Mercury News , 2004). As we have seen, race and ethnicity,as judged by physical appearance, is often used by workers to determine thelinguistic proficiency of an individual. When they were shown the photo-graphs of hypothetical customers, those interviewees who did not report usingEnglish as the categorical language in which to initiate all encounters withcustomers stated that they would address in Spanish the people who, in thewords of several informants, looked Hispanic, and in English those who

did not. A persons use of a language not popularly associated with theirethnicity even when the language is their first language continues to because for comment, as illustrated in (30):

(30) Nunca me imagine . . . Rusos hablando un espanol bien fluido, siendorusos . . .. . . fui a un Dunkin Donut, y ped en ingles una, algo para desayunar, yla mujer me contesto perfectamente en espanol, y yo quede tansorprendido que no poda creerlo, */Ud. habla tan buen espanol; */Es que yo soy peruana!

Ella no me dijo que*/

Yo soy china. Me dijo*/

Yo soy peruana. (011)I never imagined . . . Russians speaking very fluent Spanish, beingRussian . . .. . . I went to a Dunkin Donut, and I ordered in English a, something forbreakfast, and the woman answered me in perfect Spanish, and I was sosurprised that I couldnt believe it.You speak Spanish so well; Im Peruvian!She didnt say, Im Chinese. She said, Im Peruvian. (my translation)9

Just as it does outside of work, race plays a role in everyday interactions in the

workplace. In one case, an interviewee felt that his coworker was the target ofdeprecatory treatment due to the colour of his skin. In other words, his racemotivated his interlocutors lack of sympathy with his low proficiency inSpanish:



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(31) . . . Im going to tell you something about Spanish peoplefrom Spain. Theyre, I dont know, I feel like theyre a littleracist, should I say. Because every time they come into thestore, they come in and theyre talking Spanish, and

remember that guy I told you, half Black, half Dominican?He really tries with them, to talk Spanish with them. Butthey just make fun of him. I feel so bad, I feel so, because theguys really trying to learn the language. But they just makefun of him. Ill be like, and then I step into it, step to it, andIll be like, I come in and Im like, Hey, why you treatinghim so bad? in Spanish; Im like Por que lo esta tratandotan mal? No lo trate mal. Esta tratando bien duro conusted. And they feel bad. So I put them in their place.

Researcher: So do you get like, um, that doesnt happen with him and

people from other Spanish-speaking places?Informant: It, basically Caribbean Spanish [people], no, South

American people, no.. . . I guess its because, its his skintone. Thats what I think. (001)

In another case race was a factor in customers assessment of a worker asincapable of understanding Spanish:

(32) Informant: Well, sometimes, people dont know, they, sometimes theyjudge you by how you look. Sometimes they think Im Blackand not Hispanic. And they say something in Spanish,

thinking that I dont know what theyre saying.Researcher: So do you do anything when that happens?Informant: Yeah. I speak Spanish. You think I dont know Spanish?

Im Dominican, I tell them. Oh, you dont look it. Yeah, Ispeak Spanish. (1010)

Nonprestige varieties of Spanish

A few of the workers expressed their own or others beliefs about whichdialects of Spanish are less desirable. Spanish with single word borrowingsfrom English, or with frequent intrasentential codeswitches, was the varietymost often noted in pejorative terms, as in (33) (35):

(33) . . . lo que no me gusta es que me vengan a hablar en espanol y eningles . . . Yo me tiro para uno de los dos . . ..Por ejemplo, si algun hispanome quiere hablar con algunas palabras metidas de ingles, hablandoespanol, entonces me voy al ingles solo . . . (011)

. . . what I dont like is for them to come speak to me in Spanish and inEnglish . . . Ill go with one of the two. For example, if a Hispanic person

tries to talk to me with some English words thrown in, while speakingSpanish, then Ill switch to English alone. . .

(my translation)

(34) We didnt substitute words because we didnt know the word forsomething. We didnt interject Spanish for the word; if we didnt know



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what dog was in English, we didnt say perro [dog], we just, we knewwhat both of them were. It just happened naturally. Now, you see peoplespeaking what they think is bilingual, but they cant speak either one.And thats a problem, and I find that very insulting. Sometimes I tell

them, lets just stick to one. You know, one language. (112)Referring to a Spanish professor, one interviewee noted that this personsnegative view of using English and Spanish together was not restricted to thelanguage classroom, and therefore did not stem solely from pedagogicalconcerns:

(35) . . . [a] ella no le gustaba que mezclaramos los dos idiomas. Ella dice quees una falta de respeto para el espanol, si mezclamos palabras en ingles.Ella no esta de acuerdo con el Spanglish, porque no esta bien paraella . . . en su vida personal, no le gustaba. (109)

. . .

she didnt like for us to mix the two language. She says that itsdisrespectful of Spanish, if we mix in words in English. She doesntapprove of Spanglish, because its not good in her view . . . in herpersonal life, she doesnt like it. (my translation)

In (36), in addition to some morphological features of a contact dialect, astigmatised pronunciation characteristic of Caribbean Spanish was mentioned.

(36) Informant: . . . Im proud to speak Spanish, and I am proud to be able toread and write it. What makes me upset is the LatinAmericans who, or whomever, using the Spanish language,well, I would say native Latin Americans, or those whohave grown up here with Latin American parents, whodont speak the language properly, who massacre thelanguage. I cannot stand that.

Researcher: And, and you, what you would consider to be not speakingit properly, can you give any examples?

Informant: Um, just not making a proper sentence or just not, um, likesaying: Mira para alla or Subiendo para arriba which meansgoing up; its like a way of saying youre going up thestairs up, of course youre going up the stairs up. You know,things like that.

Researcher: So, redundancies?Informant: Yeah, redundancies. Or just the way they massacre the

language not pronouncing it correctly: Arroz [with uvularR]. Its not arroz [with uvular R], its arroz [with trill].Um, so I cant stand the way they mas-, I would understandmore if youre learning English and you have a problempronunciating [sic] the English language. But when youreSpanish, and you have problems pronunciating [sic] it, just

dont speak it at all, just dont massacre the language. (104)The requirement of a higher standard of proficiency however defined by theinformant for speaking Spanish, is a theme that has emerged in earlierinvestigations (Callahan, 2004). There is overall a much greater tolerance for



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imperfect English. Nevertheless, workers do show some tolerance for speakersof nonfluent Spanish, as illustrated by some of the informants willingness tomaintain a conversation with second language learners.

Discussion

This is a qualitative study, using a nonrandom sample, which is in any casetoo small to permit statistically reliable generalisations to a larger population.Nevertheless, some tendencies do emerge. In addition, there is a high degreeof congruence between the behaviour reported here and the behaviourobserved in the course of the anonymous encounters carried out in the parentproject, Language Choice in Interethnic Communication: Spanish and Englishin Urban Service Encounters. To wit, in 91% (n0/146) of the 160 totalencounters conducted by the researcher, informants answered at least partially

in Spanish when addressed by an outgroup member in Spanish.10

Anecdotalevidence suggests that, in the absence of the desire to please the customer,there might be more nonreciprocal language choice, and less accommodationto the outgroup member trying to initiate an exchange in Spanish. On twooccasions, both in a neighbourhood in which Spanish is heard more thanEnglish in public, the researcher was answered in English after she had spokenin Spanish. In both cases, the person she had addressed in Spanish had beenspeaking Spanish to another person on the scene.

Workers who have linguistic competence in Spanish and English demon-strate their sociolinguistic competence inside and outside the workplace by

using a variety of strategies. Their knowledge of the community and ofworkplace norms affords them a high degree of accuracy in matchingspeakers characteristics with the appropriate language choice. Similarpatterns have been documented elsewhere, between other language pairs.For example, Gardner-Chloros (1997: 364) found that:

. . . an understanding of the situational norms is relevant. These normsare, on the one hand, common to many different social groups, such asthe rule that the customer is always right, which makes the customersvariety dominate in customer-salesperson interactions (Genesee &Bourhis, 1982), and, on the other hand, they are enmeshed with theparticular diglossic configuration in question: thus in Strasbourg anAlsatian-speaking customer might well refrain from imposing herlanguage because there is a conflicting norm tending to prefer Frenchas the language of public conversations with interlocutors one does notknow personally. (emphasis in the original)

Many of the workers in the present study gave preference to English as apublic language, in as much as the workplace and many of the situationsfound therein are defined as public. These included working in the presenceof customers, meeting with supervisors and performing work-related

tasks with coworkers. Nonpublic situations within the workplace were limitedto conversations with Spanish-speaking coworkers when no non Spanish-speaking person was present. The majority of the informants wouldaccommodate the customers preference; the customers preference thus had



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have influenced their choices. For the same reasons, although several informantsmentioned codeswitching, none did so during the interview.

4. For seminal work on speech accommodation in monolingual exchanges, see Gilesand Powesland (1975) and Giles and Smith (1979); for accommodation in serviceencounters, see Labov (1966).

5. For another seminal work on language choice between Spanish and English inNew York City, see Poplack (1998).

6. Another worker used Spanish in the same fashion; in her workplace Spanish wasthe default language. This notwithstanding, non-Spanish-speaking customers werefrequent in this informants workplace and she knew how to identify them. Sheaddressed them in Spanish also, to avoid being accused of judging people by theirappearance.

7. For an overview of language policies in the workplace, see Aguirre, 2003; Fishman,1988; Imahara, 1993; Macas, 1997; Teboul, 2002; Ugalde, 1990; Valdes, 1997; Wyld,1997.

8. The workers language preference was not discussed in all of the interviews. In theones in which it was, workers indicated the following preferences (E0/English;

S0/Spanish; B0/ both): (001) B; (002) B; (003) B; (004) S; (005) E; (006) B; (007)E; (101) S; (102) E; (103) E; (104) E; (105) B; (106) E; (107) S; (108) S; (1010) S; (111) E.

9. Note that in this exchange, the informant, whose dominant language is Spanish,was judged by the worker to be a Spanish speaker based on his accented English.

10. Seventy per cent (n0/112) responded in monolingual Spanish, and 21% (n0/34)with a Spanish/English codeswitched utterance.

References

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Gardner-Chloros, P. (1997) Code-switching: Language selection in three Strasbourgdepartment stores. In N. Coupland and A. Jaworski (eds) Sociolinguistics. A Reader(pp. 361 375). New York: St. Martins Press.

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Appendix: Demographic Characteristics of the Interviewees

Code Sex Age Self-

reported

dominant

language

Place

of birth

Parents

place of

birth

Age of

arrival

in USA

Years

in USA

001 M 24 English USA DR 0 24 (life)

002 M 20 English USA DR 0 20 (life)

003 M 18 Both DR DR 7 11

004 M 18 Spanish DR DR 14 4

005 M 20 Both USA DR 0 20 (life)006 M 20 Both DR DR 6 14

007 M 18 Both USA DR 0 18 (life)

011 M 48 Spanish Col Col 36 12

101 F 22 Spanish Ven Ven 18 4

102 F 23 Spanish Col Col 18 5

103 F 29 Both PR PR 18 11

104 F 29 Both USA* Col 10 20

105 F 19 Both DR DR 5 14

106 F 21 Both USA DR 0 21 (life)

107 F 18 Both USA** DR 10 8

108 F 20 Both USA DR 0 20 (life)

109 F 22 Spanish DR DR 15 7

1010 F 19 Spanish DR DR 8 11

111 F 32 English USA PR 0 32 (life)

112 F 44 Spanish USA PR 0 44 (life)

*Moved to Colombia at age 4. Returned to USA at age 10. Finished high schoolin Colombia.**Moved to DR at age 1.


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