Spanglish ecolinguistic environment as a means of sustainable development

. Sustainable development of multicultural communities affected by translingualism has gained a special importance with the recognition of mixed languages within the framework of ecolinguistical methodology, which considers language communities as ecosystems. The paper aims at the ecolinguistic analysis of the relationship between language and its environment. The study implies the dual nature of language ecology (physiological and social) and the fact that the ecology of the language depends on people studying and using it, transmitting the language to others. The extensive use Spanglish is promoted by a wide range of sources, including literary texts and digital media as a form of sustainability in the American social environment. The paper enlists and discusses the features of Spanglish applying the ecological, linguistic, componential, distribution and statistical analysis methods. The study focuses on the novel Yo-Yo Boing! by Giannina Braschi and results in making certain observations on the sustainability of Spanglish societies in the USA. The paper sums up that Spanglish represents a new means of social interaction which can be described as a poststandard translingual culture serving to overcome existing environmental threats.


Introduction
The United States of America is a multi-cultural, multi-lingual and multi-ethnic country.For historical and political reasons, English and Spanish are the dominant contact languages in this area.Translingualism emerging from the contact of these two linguistic cultures attracts a special attention in the academic literature and is mainly focused on social interaction patterns in states with a prominent Hispanic population (e. g., the former Mexican states) and in the territories bordering Mexico.According to the statistical data pubished by the US Department of Homeland Security Office of Immigration, the annual increase in the number of immigrants from Latin America is about 15%.Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Haiti and El Salvador are the most important Spanish-speaking countries of the region.Despite the increase in the number of Spanish speakers in the USA, primarily due to immigrants, the degree of their integration into social, economic and political processes is not as high as one might expect, which is stated in the academic literature as well [1,2], but does not aim at having a deeper insight into the language issue as a crucial element of such integration.
The situation worsened significantly due to the reform of the US immigration policy initiated by President D. Trump, as a result of which national immigration quotas were established, funding for social adaptation programmes was significantly reduced, and the share of immigrants expelled from the United States increased.Moreover, a large-scale operation on the reconstruction of the barrier between the United States and Mexico (the so-called 'Trump wall') was performed between 2016 and 2020 to fortify and expand the border fence.
As a result, anti-Hispanic policy of the Federal government pushed Hispanics farther to the social periphery, which made this prominent minority of about 60 million people suffer from discrimination even more than ever [3].Linguistic discrimination of Spanish speakers in the USA has long been the central issue of Glosasan academic and scientific journal published since 1994 [4].As an outcome of the Trump-era policy, sociologists and urbanists have introduced the terms 'Hispanic segregation' and 'Hispanic ghettos' referring to the high degree of aggression produced by the English-speaking population towards both monolingual speakers of Spanish and bilingual speakers of Spanish and English [5][6][7].
At the same time, since 1994, there has been a higher degree of economic assimilation of migrants than in previous periods.Around the same time, there was a radical change regarding the importance of English proficiency for socio-economic adaptation.Before that, English proficiency was the basis of a successful life in the American society [8].Since the late 1990s, the situation has been changing, and this language is no longer such a key factor.As a result, academic attention is shifting towards Spanglish which is broadly considered as a way to escape the monolingual world of English or Spanish which is aggressive and discriminatory and gives Hispanics no chance for social, economic and cultural adaptation [9] creating 'borders within borders' [10].
Thus, Hispanics are currently facing an opposition of socio-economic and political factors that do not only affect their daily life, but also have a strong impact on their linguistic personality and self-identification, which makes the matter studied in the present paper an important trend of linguistic research.
Today, Spanglish is being transformed into a new form of cultural and linguistic identity.It denotes a new type of linguistic personalities whose Spanglish gives them freedom of choice and, thus, access to real democracy and stability.A wide range of academic publications approach this issue from the social, political, cultural and artistic perspective [11,12].Sociolinguistic works concentrate more on the theoretical aspects of classification and theoretical grammar [13,14].Code-switching as a hybrid language strategy is also a subject of academic debate.However, many papers deal with particular aspects of it (e.g., socio-pragmatic functions of code-switching or code-switching in computer-mediated communication) [15,16] rather than with its structural features and strategy.
So, the objective of this study is to describe the types of code-switching that ensure the functioning of the Spanglish translingual idiom, and to explain the role of Spanglish in the formation of a new linguistic personality striving for freedom of choice.For this, it is necessary to fulfill the following tasks: 1) to show the structural features of the Spanglish idiom, i. e. to identify types of codeswitching and to denote their frequency basing on the statistical data obtained; 2) to distinguish code-switching from borrowing, thus confirming that Spanglish is a self-sufficient and sustainable structure which demonstrates a high degree of translingual contamination (unlike a Creole language), due to the bilingual fluency of its speakers; 3) to find out how code-switching contributes to the linguistic self-identification of Spanglish speakers who find it the most efficient way to protect from discrimination by avoiding translation.

Materials and methods
Today, a wide range of literary texts in Spanglish is known (e. g., the poetry of the Boricua school) as well as translations of masterpieces of the world literature (e. g., Don Quixote by M. Cervantes or The Little Prince by A. de Saint-Exupery).
The novels by Giannina Braschia New York writer and literary critic of Puerto Rican originstand out since they break numerous stereotypes about the form of Spanglish that emerged in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.The current research is based on her experimental novel Yo-Yo Boing! published in 1998, which is one of the most characteristic works by G. Braschi and an example of modern linguistic nomadism in the era of globalization and digitization.This type of nomadism creates specific patterns of economic, socio-political and cultural-domestic life of the Spanglish-speaking US population trying to "wander" between two languages thus shaping their own community.Spanglish speakers do not intend to migrate to one of the languages; their ultimate intention is to switch cyclically or periodically from one language to the other.
The main features of code-switching in Spanglish are studied applying the linguistic, componential, distribution and statistical analysis methods.
Linguistic analysis based on comparison and contrast is necessary to find and define Spanglish translingual elements in the text by analyzing the phonemic and/or graphic composition, lexical meaning and morphology of these elements to differentiate them from purely English or Spanish elements deprived of translingual contamination.
Componential analysis is used to extract principal and verifiable code-switching patterns basing on semantic and cultural description.
Distribution analysis as a particular form of structural analysis is a method to evaluate the frequency of given code-switches in the gathered Spanglish material.It is also helpful to denote the position which Spanglish units occupy or may occupy in the text.
Statistical analysis aims at classifying the cases of code-switching in terms of their frequency in the novel as a whole and within each part of the text thus establishing the correlation between the linguistic and literary perspective of G. Braschi's text.

Code-switching statistics in Giannina Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing!
The total number of code-switches in G. Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing! is 1688 cases.However, their distribution in the text is unexpectedly uneven.Table 1 shows statistical data on the registered cases of code-switching correlated with the parts of the novel.Part I of the novel contains only 24 cases (1.4%) of code-switching at the word boundary.The same limited code-switching is observed in Part III with 26 cases (1.5%), also at the word boundary.In Part II, the situation is fundamentally different, with the majority of cases found there -1638 cases (97.1%).Taking into account the content of the novel and the author's striving for Spanglish mixed self-identification, it can be assumed that translingual elements here become a stylistic means of appealing to Hispanic selfrepresentation and self-determination as opposed to the protest against predominant singlelanguage cultures, in which such speakers feel deprived and discriminated.Unlike Part II, the other two parts of the text almost lack Spanglish elements just to break a popular stereotype that immigrant communities consist of uneducated and illiterate people who are simply unable to perform effective communication with the representatives of the predominant linguistic culture.
As seen in Table 1, there are six registered code-switching types according to their position in the text, which are described in more detail and illustrated below.

Code-switching between paragraphs
There are 262 registered cases (15.5%) of code-switching and code-mixing between paragraphs, which, at first glance, may seem quite extraordinary.Obviously, it is the easiest way to switch the language code.However, it is the simplicity that makes such codeswitching unproductive as the author's goal is to break the established stereotype about Hispanics and not to support it, e. g.: ( The stated simplicity is overcome by applying this code-switching pattern to a multilayered inner dialogue of the protagonist, e. g.: (

2) Yo digo: -I did it my-my-my-my. -Y después yo digo:
-Ay, tengo el disco rayado.In example (2) above, the protagonist demostrates the layers of her translingual consciousness, torn apart by the two languages she has to mix to find her own way of socializing.

Code-switching between sentences
There are 220 registered cases (13%) of code-switching between sentences within a paragraph.This type of code-switching is not as popular as some sceptics of Spanglish might expect due to the same reasons mentioned in 3.2.Nevertheless, examples of this type stand out in their logical interweaving into the story, which creates no barriers to understand it and no logical interruptions/disturbances to catch the reader's eye, e. g.: (3) Me encanta cuando se va en un trance.I long for those stretches of glazed silence.
There are more extensive text fragments which are based on this type of code-switching and demonstrate the same principles as shown in (3).Moreover, the code-switching in longer excerpts creates the rhythm and adds a poetic touch to the text.The effect is duplicated by the topic of this monologue which is both Spanish poetry and art.Another philosophical dilemma here is the 'master vs. creator' opposition.It is an important issue both for Spanglish speakers and for the academic society to denote to what extent Spanglish speakers master the patterns they use and to what extent they create these patterns while speaking.Once again, the reader witnesses the great talent of the author to master Spanglish stylistic potential and to use it to meet her artistic and philosophical needs.The growing dynamism of the story goes hand in hand with the sentence length that gets shorter and shorter towards the end of the excerpt, e. g.: (4) Alexandre puede ser mejor poeta que Lorca, pero no más grande.Lorca es común, pero no es un creador.Many masters are better poets than the creators, but they are not greater.La grandeza no es mejor.A veces es peor.There are many singers with a better voice than María Callos.But she sang great.Y la grandeza no se puede definir.

Code-switching between clauses and grammatical constructions within a sentence
There are 240 registered cases (14.2%) of code-switching between clauses and grammatical constructions within a sentence.Again, the author develops her philosophy of Spanglish being a more complex phenomenon which requires a deeper understanding of its patterns and a better mastering of both English and Spanish.Another important observation is that the lower the grammatical level of code-switching is, the more aware of language norms and English-Spanish compatibility of grammar patterns Spanglish speakers must be.This type of code-switching is characterized by nine subtypes that demonstrate a wide range of grammatical structures involved in code-switching within a simple or a complex sentence.

Code-switching between separate words or phrases
This is the only code-switching that occurs in all the three parts of G. Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing! (see Table 1 in 3.1).There are 762 registered cases (45.1%) of code-switching between separate words or phrases.This is roughly the same number as the total of all code-switching types at the grammatical level (722 cases or 42.7%) described in 3.2-3.4above.Altogether, it represents quite a proportional balance of linguistic features of Spanglish.Therefore, it is strong evidence to confirm the hypothesis that Spanglish speakers are often fluent in both standard English and Spanish and tend to mix the elements of these languages at their own will to stand out in social interaction.This type is characterized by two subtypes.Subtype 1: code-switching between separate words or phrases as an act of antidiscriminatory standing-out realized in the form of code-switching for people's names (18), or their characteristics (19), e. g.: (18) Faith DeRoos (19) Un especialista <...> is not un sabio.Subtype 2: code-switching between separate words or phrases for the reasons of specialization of grammatical meaning.
The considerable predominance of this code-switching pattern can be also explained by the specialization of meaning and function of Spanglish elements lacking some grammatical features either in English or in Spanish.In many cases it is connected with the use of articles to denote the gender and the number of a noun.Interestingly, switching the code here can add the feature which may or may not correspond to the one in Spanish, e. g.: (20) Si el killer had killed himself as well, it wouldn't be so bad.
In example (20), the definite article 'el' is used to denote the masculine gender of the noun 'killer', which corresponds to its grammatical gender in Spanish and also performs the nominative function correlating the grammar with the reality (the killer was a man: he 'had killed himself').
Example (21) shows not just a switch of codes, but a new gender for the noun 'tower' in Spanglish as well (compare it to the feminine gender for the corresponding Spanish noun 'la torre').
Another type of specialization occurs between the subject and the predicate to add the person and the number, particluarlly in the past tenses, e. g.: (22) Los rockers respondieron con gritos y aplausos <...> This subtype can also be used to duplicate the meaning which is already expressed by the component structure.Thus, it serves purely stylistic purposes, e. g.: (23) Lo próximo que supe es que Faith y yo were on a wagon cargando sobre nuestras cabezas, como si fuéramos las columnas, todo tu castillo.Finally, here is another example of duplicated specialization to mark the infinitive with both English and Spanish indicators, e. g.: (24) I don't have anything -not to llevarte la contraria, pero lo único que tengo aquí ahora son ojos para verte a ti.

Code-switching within a word
There are 146 registered cases (8.6%) of code-switching within a word.This relatively small number of cases can be explained by two reasons depending on the trigger of this code-switching thus falling into two subtypes.Subtype 1: code-switching at the graphical level as a new spelling of English or Spanish lexical units, with the former ones being predominant in the majority of cases.This can correlate the spelling with the Spanglish pronunciation of the word (25) or facilitate the spelling of the word by omitting capitalization, thus leveling the corresponding norms for Spanglish speakers (26), e. g.: (

Blurred code-switching
There are 8 registered cases (0.5%) of so-called blurred code-switching.It demonstrates such a high degree of mixing English and Spanish codes that the resulting element becomes a translingual homonym which can be interpreted as an English or Spanish unit at the same time.This type is represented by two subtypes.Subtype 1: blurred code-switching at the lexical level, e. g.: (28) Y un silencio.Horror.Un horror silencioso.Subtype 2: blurred code-switching involving grammatical structures and patterns, e. g.: (29) He ran off with Edith Piaff and left me con el disco rayado de Ingrid Bergman despidiéndose de su amante.

Discussion
Code-switching as a constituting element of non-standard translingual idioms, as seen above, is based on the idea of alternative, choice and pluralism.In philosophy, it strongly opposes the established approach to view a language as a standard-setting instrument for the corresponding monolingual communities.Thus, Spanglish cannot be compared to English or Spanish in terms of its officiality and regulatory function as it has no designated place in the standard classification of language varieties, e. g. as can be illustrated for the English language: 1. Global English: the international standard for English used by non-native speakers.
2. International English: the lingua franca at the international level as opposed to dialects and regional varieties.
As it can be seen from the above classification, such translingual idioms as Spanglish are traditionally interpreted as hybrid varieties of the English language and belong to the third group.One of the recognized drawbacks of this approach is the obvious disbalance between the first two categories and the third one, with the actual absence of a subsequent detailed differentiation within the third category.
Nevertheless, even at this stage of analysis, a number of important observations can be made, for example, regarding the fact that, when forming a new translingual idiom, the degree of linguistic contact is very important: 1st degree: everyday contact which is characterized by lexical borrowing and limited to significant words only; 2nd degree: more intense contact which involves borrowing of official and auxiliary words as well; 3rd degree: even more intense contact, in which structural word-formation models are borrowed and are productive; 4th degree: very close contact between two languages as a result of which the language structure undergoes significant changes, and words and morphemes of different origins follow new rules of the created translingual idiom.
As a result, Spanglish is sometimes still regarded as a so-called 'Glish' (Glish < [World En]glish[es]), which is a variety of English mixed with the dominant contact (native) language of the region where English functions as a foreign language.This approach is implemented within the theoretical framework called 'Concentric Circles of English' which assumes a three-part division of the English language varieties according to their official status (the language of the mother country, the language of former colonies, or a foreign language in the regions of cultural, economic, political and other influences of the Englishspeaking countries) [17].
E3S Web of Conferences 363, 04033 (2022) Therefore, a wide number of modern linguists tend to believe that the essence of hybrid languages is not in switching the language code, but in borrowing individual elements.If, nevertheless, this assumption is accepted as true, it may turn out that Spanglish is Spanish with more than usual number of English loan words, or it is English with more than usual number of Spanish loan words.This statement is obviously illogical.
First of all, it is necessary to distinguish between the concepts of borrowing and switching the language code.Borrowing is defined as 'the procedure by which a selected word from the source language is adapted for use into the target language or vice versa' [18].In this case, the graphic or sound form of the word and its lexical meaning are taken from a donor language (or a source language).In addition, in most cases, lexical units are borrowed entirely while individual word-formation suffixes and endings are almost never borrowed.
As it is seen in the examples from G. Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing!, code-switching occurs in the process of communication when the speaker performs a transition from one language to the other, depending on factors and conditions affecting communication.Very often, codeswitching occurs in regions where there is a great demographic disproportion, with significantly more people speaking a language of socio-economic prestige.Thus, codeswitching provides certain equality for the speakers of both languages: one language contributes to linguistic enrichment, while the other contributes to a higher social status of the speaker, which, in fact, is observed among the Hispanic population of the United States.It seems that there are at least five parameters by which the concepts of borrowing and code-switching can be further differenciated.
1.It is well known that the main purpose of borrowing is to expand the lexical system.The purpose of code-switching is symbolic, because as a result it generates verbalized markers of a new culture.
2. The first stage of borrowing is an exoticism, which is a foreign language interference.This interference involves spending time before using a foreign element because it implies thinking, doubt, efforts caused by an insufficient level of foreign language proficiency.Code-switching occurs without deliberation, doubt or much effort since it implies fluency in the grammatical structures of both languages.This process takes place primarily at the grammatical level, not at the lexical one, unlike borrowing.An element or structure based on code-switching never contains deviations from the rules of donor languages.
3. Borrowings are always accompanied by phonetic adaptation, semantic changes and erasure of boundaries between morphemes (i.e., simplification).In case of code-switching, no assimilation of this kind is observed: the morphemic structure of the word remains unchanged.
4. The direction of the process facilitates distinguishing between borrowing and codeswitching as well.Borrowing takes place only in one direction: from a foreign language to a native language (L2 → L1).Code-switching goes in both directions: L1 → L2 and L2 → L1, which can be explained, first of all, by the high level of proficiency in both substrate languages.
5. Individual words can be borrowed if only they fill lexical or semantic gaps, and they can also be examples of code-switching if they represent the speakers' conscious choice in favour of the most efficient structure to realize the communicative function of the language.
Like borrowing, the translation of language and cultural codes seems totally unacceptable for Spanglish speakers.The explanation can be illustrated by the popular Italian paronomasia 'traduttore, traditore' (the translator is a traitor).Translation means transplanting codes, which communicate the meaning expressed in them, from one monolingual setting to another monolingual setting.This is why translators constantly focus on methods and techniques to save the structural or conceptual elements of the source text in order not to change their meaning in the target text.Analyzing a text, translators look for differences, not for similarities between the structures of the source and target languages.So, structural parameters play only a technical role, the principal task of translators is to avoid the alternation of the meaning.
This situation is absolutely impossible for Spanglish speakers for many reasons.First of all, their constant switching between two languages has nothing to do with the monolingual setting as described above.In fact, it is the shortest way to escape it.Being monolingual in the USA imposes additional restrictions, creates more barriers and guarantees less democracy for Hispanics.
Besides, Spanglish speakers do not have to be aware of the differences between the structural elements of the donor languages as they are fluent in both and, at the philosophical level, they are in favour of bridging the gap between English and Spanish making it one language, one culture, and one code.Ignoring linguistic dissimilarities means overcoming ideological, ethnic, racial and other sensitive issues in order to create a new identity based on pride and freedom of choice, thus putting end to discrimination against them.It somehow resorts to the Hippie movement non-violence ideology declared in the form of the popular slogan 'Make love, not war'.Like Hippies, Spanglish speakers combine and mix together what is impossible to combine or mix, at first glance, as it seems contradictory and mutually exclusive.In fact, it is the same idea of openness and tolerance as alternative to restrictions, but this time the representation is different.The Hippie ideology of openness and tolerance was a protest against the middle-class, so it lies mainly within the social scope, while Spanglish speakers use their open and tolerant language to protest against monolingual usurping predominance, which is a linguistic phenomenon based on code-switching.
A hybrid language is a more versatile ground for democracy and non-discrimination as it offers its speakers freedom to interpret and use its elements both in written and oral communication.In this respect, it is worth noting that in both examples (28) and (29) above code-switching formally occurs in the written speech only.In oral communication, each speaker is absolutely free to choose the preferred pronunciation of the given unit, which will associate it with either English or Spanish to clarify the code.So it is the so much desired freedom of choice that boosts the development of such blurred elements in Spanglish as another form of a protest against one single code or one single norm in favour of linguistic pluralism and multipolarity.This pluralism is particularly important in the digitized world where multicoded content will provide translingual speakers with an opportunity to denote the code themselves or, alternatively, to create a new code of their own as a response to the agression of those using a single language code.

Conclusions
To sum up, Spanglish is a translingual idiom based on two donor languages which facilitates bridging both the linguistic and cultural gap for its speakers.The effective communication patterns in Spanglish stem from the extensive use of code-switching as a universal mechanism for bilingual social interaction.
In its turn, code-switching is quite a versatile phenomenon incorporating a number of types and subtypes falling into two proportionally balanced categories: code-switching at the word level and code-switching at the grammatical level.This observation provides strong evidence that Spanglish is an idiom originating from substrate languages rather than from donor ones, with the speakers being fluent in both English and Spanish.
Thus, summarizing the above, it can be stated that it is this factor that constitutes the essential difference between a Creole language based on borrowing and a hybrid language based on balanced code-switching.In case of borrowing, the contact is performed between a foreign donor language and a borrowing language; in case of code-switching, two parties involved are two or more substrate languages, on the one hand, and a mixed language based on elements of these substrates, on the other.
Consequently, it means a free flow of speech across two languages which symbolically represents the idea of overcoming discrimination and segregation.Thus, Spanglish speakers succeed in demonstrating that the borders between languages and cultures are a myth created by the monolingual world which usurps the power by imposing restrictions and segregating people who do not follow the designated standards.
Being Hispanic, though, does not mean for them staying in their monolingual Spanish world.In this case, translation would be a necessary measure to overcome communication barriers.This option is unacceptable for them as translation would mean sacrificing linguistic structures for the sake of the meaning.Code-switching is an efficient strategy both in terms of preserving linguistic structures and preventing segregation, which represents a new approach to solve social, ethnic, cultural and other conflicts by introducing a new of the linguistic personality based on such values as freedom of choice, openness and tolerance.

Table 1 .
Distribution of cases of code-switching in G. Braschi's Yo-Yo Boing!
25) I have to ask myself what I am doing here, listening to a Rican who can't spick English or Spanish.
(26) Y vimos que ya no are un scottish terrier.Subtype 2: code-switching between morphemes within a word which results in creating a new Spanglish lexical unit non-existent in either English or Spanish, e. g.:(27)While they were taking his mickeycharras, Mishi, la quijotesca Mishi, se les acercó a los negros y les dijo <...>