“Me aviento el English y el Spanish”: Spanish-English code-switching in Texas conjunto artist Nick Villarreal

Abstract

Aims and objectives: This study focuses on Nick Villarreal (1951–2017), a bilingual and bicultural conjunto musician from San Antonio. It ascertains the frequency, formal features, and socio-pragmatic functions of the Spanish/English code-switching found in his songs. Methodology: Quantitative and qualitative approaches are utilized to explore Nick Villarreal’s use of code-switching in song lyrics. Data and analysis: Nick Villarreal’s commercially available discography (178 non-repeated tracks) was classified by matrix language. All instances of code-switching were identified and classified by type, syntactic category, and function. Song themes were inductively analyzed. Findings: Most of Nick Villarreal’s lyrics are in Spanish (73%), while 22% contain code-switching. Lexical insertions are the most common type of switches (65%). Villarreal also employs other contact phenomena, such as fully nativized borrowings, and syntactic and semantic calques. His virtuosity is apparent in his humorous bilingualism, especially in the creative nominalizations of English clauses as nicknames (e.g., la I-didn’t-do-it). The main function performed by switches is poetic—that is, stylistic uses of language, such as rhyming, joking, and puns. He conveys authenticity through code-switching and other enregistered linguistic sources such as border slang, or caló, and working-class/rural Mexican Spanish. He shows loyalty toward a working-class rural Spanish-speaking audience of conjunto that shares his background, while simultaneously appealing to second-generation Mexican Americans through his use of English and references to Anglo culture. Originality: Only recently have scholars begun to describe the linguistic features of borderland styles. This study focuses on an artist who has never received scholarly attention before but who turned his music into a meaningful vehicle for linguistic and cultural anti-assimilatory subversion. Implications: Villarreal employs strategies common to other borderlands bilingual musicians while innovating creatively. He actively stylizes the local to evoke a sense of authenticity and is thus a meaningful example of the intersection between language representation, class allegiance, linguistic attitudes, and cultural stance.