Language Instrumentality in Southern New Mexico: Implications for the Loss of Spanish in the Southwest (Report‪)‬

ABSTRACT. U.S. Census data indicate that the majority of those of Spanish-speaking descent in this country continue to speak Spanish. At the same time, many researchers have documented the shift from Spanish to English in this group, and have suggested that the apparent vitality of Spanish in the U.S. may be due more to migration than to intergenerational language maintenance. Many of such studies utilize an approach that documents the transmission of Spanish from one generation to the next. The present study proposes to examine this phenomenon from a different perspective, investigating what Gal (1979) defines as 'intervening processes'. In particular, the instrumental value of Spanish in a border region of the Southwest is studied. This research, then, seeks to contribute to an understanding of how economic factors, such as wages and their relation to bilingual job skills, may have an impact on the shift from Spanish to English in one region of the U.S./Mexico border. * INTRODUCTION. U.S. Census data indicate that those of Spanish-speaking descent (often labeled 'Hispanics' by the U.S. Census Bureau) (1) are the fastest growing ethnic segment of the United States population, and now form the largest minority group in the nation (http://www.census.gov). The majority of this group speaks Spanish; indeed, after English, Spanish is the second most widely spoken language in this country, with the U.S. being the fifth largest Spanish-speaking nation in the world (Villa 2000).