Spanglish utilizes a number of processes to create new lexical items. One seemingly obvious technique is borrowing, or the use of vocabulary from another language (in this case, Spanish or English). Calquing is the literal translation of a word or phrase in one language to replace a word or phrase with the same meaning in another language. For example, the Spanish translation of “to find guilty” is “declarar culpable” (literally, to declare guilty), but the Spanglish translation is “encontrar culpable” (to find guilty). Encontrar would not appear in this usage in Spanish (citation below, see “calquing”).
A third linguistic process that occurs frequently in Spanglish (in fact, some might define the language an extended form of this) is code switching. Code switching, or alternating between Spanish and English, may occur with words, clauses, or sentences. Contrary to the belief of Spanish and English “purists” who decry the status of Spanglish as a legitimate language, code switching does not occur randomly. Its grammatical rules will be discussed in the next post.
A few Spanglish vocabulary items:
-loncheria – a place to eat lunch, English “lunch” + Spanish “-eria” (suffix which denotes a place where something is sold, eg pescaderia – a fish shop)
-cheateo – a person who cheats, cheater, English “cheat” + Spanish “-eo” (suffix meaning a person who does something)
-estresar – to be stressed out, English “stress” + Spanish “-ar” (suffix denoting an infinitive); cited by Stavans in an NPR interview as one of his favorite Spanglish words
-honron – homerun, Spanish pronunciation of the English word
-cliquear – to click (a mouse), English “click” + Spanish “-ear” (suffix meaning to do something)
Torres, Lourdes. “Don Quixote in Spanglish: Traducttore, traditore?”. Romance Quarterly 52.4 (2005 Fall), pp. 328-334
“Calquing” Trusted Translations. http://translation-blog.trustedtranslations.com/tags/calque 27 April 2009.
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