No abstract

This study examined classroom discourse in two Spanish language courses for Spanish-English bilingual students at a large university in central Texas, in order to investigate the ways that participants used language to construct their linguistic and cultural identities. The study found that students' identities as bilinguals are linked to socially constructed discourses on the value of different language varieties and cultural experiences that draw from an oversimplification of the reality of the sociolinguistic world. Participants constructed essentialized categories of different kinds of U.S. Hispanics, often assuming an essential connection between language and identity. Students constructed their identities by positioning themselves and others within these categories and by constructing their language skills and cultural backgrounds as either a value or a deficit. Results suggest the need to further develop methodologies for raising heritage language learners' consciousness about the heteroglossic nature of the social world.

This case study examined how one instructor navigated between two competing discourses in an intermediate Spanish heritage language (HL) classroom: on the one hand, teaching 'Standard Spanish' to help students achieve professional success, and legitimizing home linguistic practices on the other. In addition to expressing both perspectives directly through overt language, the instructor also represented them through indirect representation of stances toward the context, toward ways of using language, and toward other speakers. She did this by moving in and out of her language teacher role and thus constructing different social contexts in the classroom, by displaying positive and negative affective stances toward features of local varieties of Spanish, and by constructing stances of authority based on knowledge of 'correct' Spanish in some moments, and based on her own experiences as a bilingual in others. The study findings contribute to an understanding of the role of US educational institutions in the construction of ideologies about Spanish and provide information that can be used to improve HL instruction.Este estudio de caso examinó cómo una instructora transitó entre dos discursos que competían en la sala de clase en un curso intermedio de español: por una parte, la idea de enseñar 'español estándar' para ayudar a los estudiantes a lograr éxito profesional, y por la otra la legitimación de sus prácticas lingüísticas familiares. Además de expresar las dos perspectivas directamente a través de lenguaje explícito, la instructora también las señaló por medio de la representación indirecta de posturas hacia el contexto, en sus diferentes maneras de usar el idioma y en su referencia a otros hablantes. Hizo esto entrando y saliendo de su rol de maestra de lenguas y así construyendo diferentes contextos sociales en el aula, y representando posturas afectivas positivas y negativas hacia características de las variedades locales del español. También, en algunos casos construyó posturas de autoridad basadas en su conocimiento del español 'correcto,' y en otros se basó en sus propias experiencias como bilingüe. Los descubrimientos del estudio contribuyen a una comprensión del papel de las instituciones educativas de los EE.UU. en la construcción de las ideologías sobre el español, y proveen información que se puede usar para mejorar la instrucción sobre las lenguas de herencia.

Introduction: Federal law requires any agency receiving federal aid to take "reasonable steps" to provide meaningful access to qualified limited English proficient (LEP) individuals. However, policies for the provision of language access services, including medical interpretation, vary substantially by state. The Latino population and the number of LEP individuals in the U.S. state of Kansas have grown substantially over the past 20 years, necessitating increased attention to the state's language access policies. Method: Though a review of previous research, we present health disparities affecting Latinos in Kansas, examine the state's language access policies for health care, and argue that health disparities could be reduced through improved language access. Findings: While Kansas reimburses health care entities for interpreter services associated with Medicaid, the state has no health care interpreter competency requirements. As a result, LEP persons, primarily Spanish speakers, may be left to navigate through complex hospital systems with inadequate guidance in their language and may be at an increased risk for medical errors due to language barriers. Conclusion: We suggest changes that could be implemented to improve access and reduce health disparities affecting Latinos in Kansas and across the United States, and we describe work that is currently underway to support these changes.

An important component of social justice research is centering the voices of those individuals whose lives the research is intended to improve, not as subjects from whom researchers collect data but as active participants in a process of understanding and addressing issues of concern to the community. This ideal of community engagement slows the pace of dissemination of traditional social science or sociolinguistic scholarship but also allows scholars and community members to collaborate to identify and implement meaningful solutions to community problems. We describe a process of engagement of Spanish-speaking patients, interpreters, and healthcare providers in developing a health equity agenda for Spanish speakers in Kansas, grounded in a community-based participatory approach called Patient-Centered Outcomes Research. Stakeholders were engaged through sharing and amplifying their testimonios, stories that tied personal experiences of encountering language barriers in healthcare with calls to action, and they contributed to decisions about what to do with the stories and how to respond to the problems they identified. The result of our engagement process is the formation of a community-based team that has amplified the voices of Spanish-speaking patients and families to reach a range of audiences and responded to a number of evolving community needs. We provide recommendations for language researchers interested in pursuing community-engaged work and explore the possibilities for aligning such work with the expectations of academic institutions.