Ilan Stavans Spanglish

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In the article “Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language” by Ilan Stavans, a well-known Mexican-American teacher, publisher, lexicographer, and cultural critic, there are many mixed feeling from the author about his topic. He presents multiple views on many different situations and ultimately never comes to a full agreement on if he thinks Spanglish is good or bad. Stavans uses the four “connecting the parts” principles laid out in They Say/I Say chapter 8, transitions, pointing words, key terms, and repetition, quite often in his article. Stavans uses transitions in his article multiple times to help the reader better understand the connection between parts of writing. For example, he writes “I wasn’t completely sure I understood her statement, so I asked Lisa where she was going” (143). The word ‘so’ in this excerpt is the use of a transition, one of many examples in this piece, that connects two parts if information together for the reader. In this case it is connecting the idea of his uncertainty of…show more content…
For example, Stavans writes “Lisa wasn’t using the traditional college language a pupil is expected to articulate in the professor’s designated space. Instead, judging by her vocabulary and syntax, she had already departed New England for Los Angeles: she was inhabiting the language of her turf, su propia habla, not the language of the alien environment where she found herself at present” (144). This is a good example of this principle because it shows how Stavans writes almost the same idea multiple times, but it does not sound the same. In the beginning of the excerpt he says traditional college language, but near the end of the excerpt he says language of the alien environment. These two phrases are almost identical in thought, but they are different in the way they are used and the emotion that they

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