Anna Celia Zantella

azentell@shiva.hunter.cuny.edu

Puerto Rican Children in New York
Hardback $54.95
Paperback $24.95
Blackwell Publishers 1-800-216-2522

This book provides an inside view of the social construction of bilingualism in one of the largest and most disadvantaged Spanish=speaking groups in the United States. It walks readers through a New York Puerto Rican community and describes the five varieties of Spanish and English that constitute the community's bilingual and multi-dialectal repertoire, the four major communication patterns that predominate in the homes of twenty families with children, and the syntactic features and discourse strategies of the so-called "Spanglish".

Growing up Bilingual describes the individual code-switching styles of five childhood friends, the development of their English and Spanish as they went separate ways as teenagers, and the socialization of their infants to and through oral and literate uses of language when they became mothers. Confronting issues concerning the relationship between bilingualism and linguistic, cognitive and educational development, this book provides and insight into the increasing linguistic and cultural diversity of modern communities.