They number far less than the majority of the country's nearly 4. The year-old Johnson has lived all his life in Costa Rica, but you could never tell, given his strong Jamaican accent and knowledge of the Caribbean country.
Johnson tells much about Jamaica, but the knowledge wasn't garnered on his visit when he went in search of relatives. He did not find them. Limon is some ways off the Costa Rican capital, nearly two hours in the direction towards Panama, which borders the nation to the north.
The questionnaire is accompanied by a set of instructions guiding participants through the task. Due to the eclectic methodology of this study, all data were analyzed in a succession of steps to provide evidence of reliability of the analyses performed. Thus, results from the quantitative data were compared to results of the qualitative data from the essays.
The quantitative data analysis was followed by the qualitative data analysis. A quantification of questionnaire data was carried out and data were presented in raw scores and percentages form to describe the population see Table 1 above.
Responses given to the quantitative questions of the questionnaire were also tallied. A MANOVA was carried out to detect differences in the responses according to three different dependent variables in the overall essay attitude, type of English to learn, preservation of LE, and preservation of indigenous languages as well as the independent variables of gender, age, ethnicity, education, profession, language spoken, and language preference.
All, but one variable was naturally categorical. It also provides their probability weights. A probability weight of more than. The information yielded by this type of analysis has helped move the variationist sociolinguistic field forward towards more precise accounts of language variation and change. Thus, this type of analysis was selected to be able to quantify attitudes encountered in each of the respondents?
Coding was done based on the premise that? This characteristic of the essay response makes it difficult to find a unified response within each essay. Accounting for the different attitudes found in each essay is a way to find all possible attitudes held by the participant, both overt and covert. A covert attitude is defined as those used as a justification for a specific overt attitude.
Covert attitudes are part of the speaker? These attitudes represent the population? Therefore, a complex system of positive and negative attitudes is expected to be present within each essay. Such complexity may only be accounted for by analyzing each comment separately.
Thus, for this analysis a binomial dependent variable was created. The variable was defined by positive or negative attitude towards Limonese English. Positive attitudes include any comment in favor of Limonese English, any statement putting Limonese English at the same level as that of American or British English, any clear statement for the preservation of Limonese English, or any cultural comment that favors Limonese English.
In opposition to positive attitudes, negative attitudes include any comments in favor of American or British English, any preference for the preservation of indigenous languages above Limonese English, any comments or descriptions of Limonese English that are not founded in empirical evidence i.
The coding of each essay was done in three steps. The first was to identify covert and overt positive and negative attitudes towards the language within each essay. Attitude stands were grouped as positive or negative. All positive and negative attitudes were counted and totaled. The second step was to analyze each essay to account for distinct positions and beliefs towards language in order to find an overall positive or negative stand. The score was based on the total number of covert and overt attitudes found via a simple majority method.
Essays that had more positive attitudes than negative ones were coded with an overall positive stand and vice versa. In cases where a tie was found, the essay was read one or two more times to account for the speaker?
The researcher? This categorization serves as a point of departure for the quantification of the attitudes present in an essay.
Figure 9 shows an example of the coding scheme used for each essay. The repertoires were compared to one another in search of dichotomies in the attitudes present in the discourse, and then classified as representing negative or positive attitudes.
Results from the different analyses were used to account for the interactions of participants? Each of the following analyses is accompanied by a description of the variables and their coding with results presented accordingly. However, an overview of the responses shows that participants often chose names related to their real names or popular nicknames that show no language-related preference.
Figure 9. Coding scheme sample. Four dependent variables were included in this analysis. The first was the overall essay attitude.
The second was the language in which the participant would like to receive further education. The third was LE preservation. This third variable indicates whether participants support the preservation of Limonese English or not.
The fourth variable was Indigenous Languages preservation. As with variable three, this variable shows whether or not the participant supports indigenous languages preservation. The independent variables included in this analysis were gender, age, ethnic group, education, profession, spoken language and language preference see Table 2 above for details.
Group 2 carries more negative attitudes towards Limonese English than those of the other groups see Table 2. Table 2. Overall Essay Attitudes by Age Group. Table 3 shows the preference, by age group, for the LE preservation. Table 3. LE Preservation by Age Group. Table 4 shows that people who had only attended primary school held negative attitudes towards the preservation of indigenous languages while people with a university background registered a lower percentage of negative attitudes towards the preservation of indigenous languages.
Table 4. Indigenous Language Preservation by Age Group. These results show that indigenous languages attracted a more positive attitude than Limonese English.
Tables 5 and 6 provide evidence for how Limonese English is subject to more negative attitudes than indigenous languages by people in the professions as well as those in services, farming, and even students whereas indigenous language preservation is subject to more support from these same groups with the exception of services and farmers, which show a low percentage of negative answers.
Spoken Language was also a source of significant differences. Table 7 shows how monolingual Spanish speakers hold more negative attitude towards Limonese English than bilinguals. Table 5. LE Preservation by Profession. Table 6. Indigenous Languages Preservation by Profession. Table 7. Overall Essay Attitudes by Spoken Language. Table 8 shows how monolingual Spanish speakers tend to disfavor the preservation of indigenous languages while bilinguals have a more favorable attitude towards it.
Table 8. Indigenous Language Preservation by Language Spoken. The first interaction may be attributed to the stereotypes embedded within the Costa Rican society about Limonese English and the lack of linguistic knowledge in the community. The second may be attributed to the fact that the higher the level of education, the more an individual is in contact with the outer-circle varieties, the more negative attitudes towards the lesser known variety are evident, as pointed out in previous studies Herzfeld, ; Winkler, Independent variables such as gender or ethnic group did not yield significant differences in the responses.
Nor were there any significant differences on participant responses related to the language of the questionnaire chosen. In sum, attitudes toward Limonese English are varied and come from diverse sources. Table 9. Social variables also help predict positive or negative attitudes toward Limonese English. To determine which social variables will help predict positive or negative attitudes toward Limonese English, a logistic regression with the dependent variable defined as positive or negative attitudes was conducted.
Every case was accounted for from each of the covert and overt variables found in the essays. Seven social independent variables were entered, including gender, age, ethnic group, education, profession, language spoken, and language preference.
A total of tokens were entered in the regression. From these , or All seven independent variables were introduced into the regression analysis. From these seven social variables five were chosen as predictive groups while two others were eliminated in the process with a Log likelihood of The variables eliminated in the process were ethnic group and profession.
The variables chosen as predictors were, in order of importance, gender, age, education, spoken language, and language preference.
The variable gender was selected as the first predictor. In this analysis males favored negative attitudes towards LE with a probabilistic weight of. This finding contradicts those in the sociolinguistic field because women tend to be more conservative when it comes to language change. However, in this case the attitude towards the spoken language was being discussed in the community, and women frequently identify more with their local community than men since they are the ones who spend more time in community activities such as PTA meetings, religious functions, and preparations for local festivities while men tend to be exposed to the other varieties through the job market.
That said, this issue requires further investigation. In a sense, it can be claimed that conservatism as shown here is an overall desire for language maintenance. Age was selected as the second most important factor. As with the results from the MANOVA analysis, the regression age group 1 disfavored negative attitudes with a probabilistic weight of.
Education was the third variable to be selected as a predictor. In this group, people with a secondary level of education disfavored negative attitudes toward Limonese English with a probabilistic weight of. The fourth group was spoken language.
People who spoke Spanish only favored negative attitudes toward Limonese English whereas people who spoke Spanish and languages other than English disfavored negative attitudes with a weight of. The last variable to be selected was language preference.
People who preferred to express themselves in Spanish disfavored i. Bilinguals tended to favor i. And, people who preferred English to express themselves favored i.
Because the results in both analyses patterns are similar, they are used as evidence for the reliability of the coding and the validity of the qualitative results that are presented in the following sections. Some of these repertoires appear in both negative and positive versions. This was done because the attitudes under study examine two varieties of English, and because there are other languages involved in this contact situation i.
Spanish, Chinese, and indigenous languages. For negative attitudes seven repertoires emerged. The first one was the minimizer repertoire.
In this repertoire the person did not mention Limonese English at all and tended to avoid talking about it. Participant: M3NS. It is very important to speak English because Costa Rica is widely visited by foreigners and both adults and children must learn to be able to work in the tourist industry my translation. The second repertoire is the utilitarian. In this repertoire, the person talks about the advantages of using American or British English as a means for social mobility and job opportunities.
Example: English in fact is a language that help us to enter into the arena of the develop countries but it is no the most important language and our education should not be in English because our language is Spanish and if we want we can learn a new language. Participant: M1NB. The third is the assimilationist repertoire. Members of this repertoire tend to advocate the assimilation to either American English or British English. Participant: F2NS.
I believe that American English should be the only English language we teach our students. The fourth repertoire is the negative linguist. Members of this group gave a detailed explanation of why Limonese English is not a language and why it could never be considered a language. Example: Personally the first scenario shows a person overwhelmed by the American language and culture, someone whom I would say is in a way a racist person in the way he donnot accept other languages rather then English, American English is the most spoken English in America, but if we look next door, British English is widely spoken in Europe, so I don?
The fifth repertoire is the negative anthropologist. Like the negative linguist, members of this repertoire tended to give detailed explanations of the origins of Limonese English and its culture and why it cannot be considered a language because it is part of a very small group of people.
Example: It is not that in Limon they speak a language other than English, is just that the younger or the youth of these days don? It would be good to teach them the way to get interested in learning English.
The American one or the British one English so as to develop their knowledge in the language. Participant: F2BB.
The sixth repertoire is the negative practitioner. Members of this group tended to think that even though they speak Limonese English, they should not continue to use it or teach it because it is not proper language.
Example: Well, I really believe that our students should learn as much as they can. Teachers should teach different types of English at the same time because it is no fair that students only study things that appear on a simple book or teachers first explain a couple of basic structures in English. English is so wide and its is going to be better for them and us to make a variety of knowledges from different countries, but speaking of Limon I dare to think, that they have to study more speak better, and going deeply on the language because?
English is a fantastic thing. The last repertoire is the isolationist. Example: Standard English is the one that should be thought in our country. These kind of languages like patua or bribri should be kept too, but just for the people that live there and have to deal with it every day.
I have heard people from Limon using their language and I have not been able to understand what they say. I also know that it is very difficult for these people to speak standard English in a proper way.
Therefore I think it should be kept just in Limon. For positive attitudes towards Limonese English, eight repertoires emerged. The first one was the equalizer. Members of this group tended to equalize, at all levels, Limonese English to any other variety of English. Example: El ingles como se le conoce patua como el hablado en Limon C.
Participant: M2NS. English as we know it, and patua like the one spoken in Limon C. To my understanding what we should do is to enrich it through workshops or courses and in addition, because it is a Creole, and from what I understand verbs are not conjugated, which is different from American English my translation. The second repertoire is the conservationist who advocates for the preservation of Limonese English as a national and cultural icon.
Example: I? For me it is too sad that every day our own language loses its importance; that? The United States is part of the world, no the world. The third positive repertoire is the positive anthropologist who advocates for the status of Limonese English as a language because of the history of its speakers. Our dialect that some people called creole should always be their because is our culture but It is very important to learn the appropriate language that is not American language.
Participant: F1BB. The fourth repertoire is the nationalist who advocates for the officialization of Limonese English as a national language. Example: I agree with the second paragraph, because it is incredible that as American as? In fact, the government could implement a program related with the use and ways for how to learn Limonese language, and most of our national languages.
Participant: F1NB. The fifth repertoire is the positive linguist who explains why Limonese English is a language like any other language; this repertoire is different from that of the equalizer because the person in this repertoire gives detailed linguistic descriptions of Limonese English. It is true is part of the English language, but they have their own characteristics as it or they have as a social dialect. Participant: M2NB. The sixth repertoire is the positive practitioner who is proud to speak and teach Limonese English to the younger generations.
Example: I totally agree with paragraph 2 while I was reading paragraph 1, I was completely upset. I don? I have a boyfriend who is from Limon, and I speak with him in English. I understand every word he says, we don? Definitely, Limonese must keep the way they speak.
The seventh repertoire is the activist who advocates for the rights of Limonese English speakers in order to avoid discrimination. Example: You must take into account diversity in your perspective. The way you learn to speak certain dialect is kind of a cultural legacy. It is not good to globalize the different dialects of English. In addition, there is not necessary to describe the creole, patua or mek-a-tel-you as ugly or bad language.
There are differences to respect, to understand and support. The last repertoire is the educator who advocates for the teaching of Limonese English to all children and at all levels of the educational system. Our students should know and have the understanding that they are way to communicate, so there is no ugliness in speaking X language; for this we will have to disappear a lot of languages.
Another option, however, is tosay gatico. This ending was and still is used so extensively byCosta Ricans that they came to be known as ticos. What, however, about the word gringo, the name they giveus? Macho, in fact,can still refer to a U. Despite the fact that in certain parts of the Americas, gringo canmean any foreigner or any speaker of English, most Ticos use itto designate only citizens of the United States.
Their sense of it just may be historically accurate. There aretwo vying popular stories about its origin, both involving folksfrom the United States. One theory is that U.
At first, the wordreferred only to Texan soldiers, then to Texans, and finally to citizensof the United States. Some linguists believe the term is too widespread to haveoriginated so recently, and that it may date back to at least 16thcenturySpain. Whetherit is pejorative or not in the mouths of Ticos seems to depend moreon the attitude of the speakers and the tone in which they say itthan on the word itself.
If they dolike us, and I believe a great many do, it is a convenient and sometimesaffectionate way to distinguish us from other foreigners. Sometimes, they may call us norteamericanos, but Mexicans andCanadians are also North Americans.
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