The influence of English in the Latin community: language contact, code-mixing and code-switching by Latin singers

Abstract

[eng]This paper aims at analysing a selection of recent well-known Latin songs which combine Spanish and English in order to examine the usage of code-mixing and code-switching. Thus, the increasing practice of incorporating English words and expressions within the Latin pop music genre will be highlighted to show that there is a constant repetition of the same patterns to improve the quality of the song as well as to reach a broader audience. Even though many studies have been conducted in relation to this topic, this paper will attempt to go further with an extensive approach of code-switching and code-mixing separately. In order to do so, an in-depth analysis of the Latin songs Con Calma, Loco Contigo and Tusa will be carried out individually to determine that each of the songs follows similar patterns of borrowing: the category of nouns is the predominant grammatical category that is incorporated from English; as to semantic fields, those related to celebration and persons together with sexual connotations dominate. The overall intention of mixing codes is to engage the audience in the dance track with a more hybrid and amusing aesthetic, play on words, and fashionable and authentic rhymes and rhythms. All the aforementioned aspects will be shown to be contributing to favour the development and expansion of this musical genre which provides its audience with a dynamic way of improving their bilingual abilities.