Language selection by Hispanics in a small upstate New York community

Abstract

Fifty-four Hispanics from Utica, NY completed questionnaires about the languages that they spoke in three domains (family, friends, and formal) during their childhood and adulthood. The social variables considered were age, level of education, time in the USA and Utica, gender and generation. The latter two most influenced reported language selection. The participants overwhelmingly answered that they used Spanish during their childhood with parents and grandparents. However, comparing the participants' reported language use between childhood and adulthood, the parent-child and grandparent-grandchild relationships showed the largest decreases in reported use of Spanish among all the family relationships. This result is consistent with language shift to English in the family. The informants also report less exclusive use of Spanish with friends in adulthood than in childhood. However, 78 % of them said that they use both English and Spanish with friends in adulthood. In the formal domains of religion, stores, workplace, and restaurant, more responses of only English are registered in adulthood than in childhood. Nevertheless, adults report using Spanish or both English and Spanish in Utica in all the formal domains. The reported use of Spanish is especially high in the religious domain.