Sinopsis del Libro

This collection of papers addresses the wide variety of questions that arise when Spanish (or any language) comes into contact with other languages. Which languages are used and under what circumstances? How do languages change and affect each other in a bilingual or multilingual environment? How do societal pressures, cultural stereotypes, and individual attitudes affect language use and development, or even result in the death of a language? Spanish in Contact is organized into three sections, examining contact situations in Spain, Latin America, and the United States. The authors look at regions where Spanish is the dominant language as well as regions where it is the minority language, and discuss changes in the lexicon, phonology and syntax of the affected languages. Code-switching and issues in language planning are also addressed.