Bilingual Elements in Latino Slam Poetry

Abstract

This article is a corpus analysis of bilingualism and bilingual elements found in contemporary Latino slam poetry. After briefly reviewing bilingualism in general in Latino literature, this article goes on to apply both literary and linguistic theory to a corpus of twenty slam poems, coding each poem for examples of loanwords, code-switching, and interlanguage phonology/morphology. Though many of the results of this study reflect the outcomes of previous studies written on the topic of bilingualism, some of the findings provide a different point of view. Many previous studies on bilingualism in Latino literature claim that bilingual elements are used to create a sense of immersion in the narrative or poem, and thus the authors are not as concerned with the authenticity nor the correctness of the bilingual element. However, the results of this study demonstrate that the authors of the bilingual poems in the corpus show the utmost care in their planned use of bilingual elements, and that these elements are used as a tool to create a greater sense of authenticity. The authors’ use of elements such as loanwords and code-switching are accurate to what would be expected in the normal speech of bilinguals.