Spanish and English in U.S. Service Encounters [Hardcover]

Service encounters involve communication between strangers. Communication - or, at times, miscommunication - between strangers who come from different groups can foster the formation of stereotypes. This is therefore an area of particular relevance for investigation. Using service encounters as a vehicle, Callahan examines Spanish as social capital in the United States, focusing on who may use this language and under what circumstances. This book contributes to an examination of Spanish in the United States as a language of selected uses and selected users, along with the factors that can influence United States Latinos acceptance of its use by other Latinos and by non-Latinos.Service encounters involve communication between strangers. Communication - or, at times, miscommunication - between strangers who come from different groups can foster the formation of stereotypes. This is therefore an area of particular relevance for investigation. Using service encounters as a vehicle, Callahan examines Spanish as social capital in the United States, focusing on who may use this language and under what circumstances. This book contributes to an examination of Spanish in the United States as a language of selected uses and selected users, along with the factors that can influence United States Latinos acceptance of its use by other Latinos and by non-Latinos.Introduction*Acknowledgements*Reciprocal and Non-Reciprocal Language Use*Workers Report on their Language Use * Observing Workers' Language Use*Codeswitching in Service Encounters*A Comparison of Service Encounters in Person and over the Telephone*Conclusions and Implications

This book provides a fascinating exploration of language choice in the workplace; it uses service encounters as a lens for examining how speakers position themselves in relation to others through language accommodation (or non-accommodation). Using recent theoretical frameworks based on the social construction of identity, Callahan offers ul³Y