Anth/Ling 114
#1C
Due Nov. 5th, 2014
Argument Mapping
The goal of this paper is to present an ‘argument mapping ’ of Jane H. Hill’s article, ‘Language, Race, and White Public Space ’. In order to map the argument, I will do the following four steps. Firstly, I am going to claim the main point of this article.Secondly, I will define all the terms and concepts in the argument article to understand the main thought of the author. Third, I will link these claims and evidence , compared them to the main point that the author gives to support the main idea. Third, I will rewrite the claims in the article to help know the structure in Leap’s article better.I will be arguing that there are five main points:one indirect indexicality explication, one direct indexicality explication, an ideological explanation ,a strategical claim, and a conclusive report.
Hill focus on the linguistic form of Spanish accents and mock Spanish spoken in …show more content…
White Public Space by white people in America.Mock Spanish can be defined as direct indexicality and indirect indixicality. The difference between them is, the direct indexicality is admitted by speakers, and they are not consciously about indirect function. The indirect indexicality has the opposite meaning.
Hill uses two different kinds of evidence to support his claim,the first one is empirical evidence, research on bilingual Puerto Ricans who lives in New York City to a national community of Whites by Urciuoli(1996) .He thinks that there are two kinds of spheres: one called inner sphere within household and daily use,and one called outer sphere which uses more officially,like in text and courthouse.He states that people from Puerto Rico use the “outer sphere” as an important site of their racialization, but Whites seems to speak more “linguistically” in different places. He researches the boundary in public discourse between Spanish and English.Hill uses another form of ethnographic evidence by observation of the informal talk and conversations with the white Puerto Ricans,and also uses advertisement and social media function to find out the differentiation of Mock Spanish by White people in America.
The first claim I find out ,is that the speakers of Mock Spanish think they use the language to show regional authenticity,Cosmopolitanism,humorous and cultural identity of Spanish.I rename this claim as ‘indirect indexicality explication’.This expounded the positive identity of the speaker who uses Mock Spanish.
The second claim Hill explained in his article is that most people who speaks English in the public area are worried about their accents,include these Spanish-Speaking people.People who use standard English is more in a dominant position than use the accent English.I rename this claim as an ’ ideological explanation ’.The main theme of Hill’s article is talk about White public spance, which white people speaks Mock Spanish considered to be normal,but when Spanish speaker speaks Spanish or accent English will be reproached.She argues that American Whites who speaks Mock Spanish may be indirectly indication of racism against the Spanish speakers.Many Spanish speakers think that people who speaks Mock Spanish indirectly alluding to racism and consider themselves to be offended because Mock Spanish has a lot of grammatical mistakes and even coarse language in it,while most whites do not admit that.So I renamed this as ’ direct indexicality explication ‘.To sum up, Mock Spanish has both indirect indexicality and direct indexicality.
I rename the fourth claim as the ‘strategical claim’:explained how the four key strategies is used in Mock Spanish.The first strategy is the deterioration of semantic of Spanish loans,means that Spanish seems to be subordinate.The second strategy is euphemism in Mock English,means that use the equivalent efficacy in Spanish words insted of those aggressive words in English.The third strategy is change English elements into the way of Spanish morphology,that is ,for example,adding ‘o’ sound at the end of the word can make the word sounds in a Spanish way.The fourth strategy is to use Spanish which is ‘ hyperanglicized’ , means a great emphasis on English accent of American.
I renamed the final claim as a ‘ conclusive report ’,which means Mock Spanish carries out the racialization of minorities,said as a ‘covert racial discourse’ in the article.The author also uses evidence to support the idea,by providing the example of ‘hate speech’.
In the article,Hill states that Mock Spanish shows superiority in America ,especially in white society,over the Spanish speakers and also the Hispanic people who lives there.There are five components in my argument mapping based on his structure.here are the sum up of my renamed argument:Firstly,Hill provides one indirect indexicality explication and one direct indexicality explication,then she uses an ideological explanation.Then she uses a strategical claim,which consists of four strategies about how Mock Spanish is used.Finally,I provided a conclusive report to state the general argument of her article in my argument mapping.