Abstract

This thesis surveyed a group of second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilingual speakers in the Coachella Valley, California to determine common motives for code-switching in speech. In previous studies, motives or triggers to code-switching have been identified and recorded in major urban cities such as Los Angeles and New York, and this thesis seeks to identify this phenomenon in the rural and agricultural cities of the Coachella Valley, with focus on Indio and Coachella, CA. Furthermore, another goal of this study was to analyze research on code-switching in a sample of older adults ages 45-75 as compared to much of the research that tends to focus on young adults or children. This study also took into consideration the code-switching patterns between males and females.This thesis analyzed 10 audio-recorded interviews of second generation Mexican-American Spanish-English bilingual speakers. The interviews were recorded in Indio, CA in 2015. The data collected were analyzed for naturally occurring code-switching pattern frequencies, code-switching differences found between genders, and code-switching differences found in age groupings.The results showed similar findings to those found in previous studies on code-switching patterns, the greater code-switching frequency in women, and the stronger disapproval of code-switching in adults.

Degree

College and Department

Humanities; Spanish and Portuguese