Steller: Spanish or English — language debate is passionate

After I wrote Sept. 6 about the discussion of how to pronounce Spanish words when they come up in English speech, readers called and wrote me and debated the issue passionately on social media. I even got some expert insight into bilingualism and how people really behave when switching between languages.

Two points struck me: One is that the degree of suppression of Spanish and indigenous languages by teachers and other authorities during decades in this region should not be underestimated. Lots of current Tucson-area residents have lived the denigration of their native tongue.

Another is that people can have whatever accents they want. People talk in all kinds of ways around Tucson — New York City, Texas, Chicago and Chicano accents are all commonly heard — and that’s fine. The question is more about the conscious decision of how to pronounce words from one language when speaking in another.

One reader wrote me via email that I had a “hidden agenda” for objecting to a new Phoenix TV anchor’s reasons for pronouncing words with a Spanish-language accent. “Regardless whether you arrived in Tucson speaking Spanish or not, there should be common-place respect for what you met when you got here,” he said.

Another reader wrote that he is bothered by TV reporters sometimes injecting Spanish pronunciations into English-language broadcasts. “From my personal perspective, these seem to be grossly overstated affectations and consequently are quite annoying, irritating, and disruptive.”

And a caller told me I was simply siding with the “dominant” culture by deciding to pronounce Spanish words like Tanque Verde with an Anglo-American accent when speaking in English. I asked the caller how he says Tucson, and he answered, “took — SOHN,” using the most common Spanish pronunciation.

That of course, is a Spanish/Mexican version of the original O’odham pronunciation of the name of this place. So I guess we both were OK with letting the dominant culture dictate pronunciation after all.

Kalim Gonzales has a lot to say about these issues. He got his Ph.D. from the University of Arizona in 2013 after researching the gritty details of bilingualism and switching between languages. Now he is working as a Yunshan Youth Scholar at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies in Guangzhou, China.

One rule of thumb for switching between languages, he noted in an email exchange, is that pronunciations often are not conscious and depend on context. For example, if a Spanish-English bilingual switches languages suddenly but then says a word that is similar in each language, like “hospital,” that person is more likely to pronounce it in the accent of the language the speaker was using just before switching.

Of course, the details go much deeper than that, Gonzales explained. For example, the appearance of the person with whom a bilingual person is speaking can have an impact on their fluency.

“When Chinese-English bilinguals are speaking English while viewing an Asian rather than Caucasian face, they become less fluent,” he explained.

Gonzales is finding in his research that bilingual people can be cued back to their previous language when encountering familiar sounds or words in a different language. That could be what Vanessa Ruiz, the KPNX-TV anchor, was doing when pronouncing Spanish words with a Latin American accent, something that prompted complaints from some viewers.

Of course, that didn’t happen when Ruiz introduced former Rep. Ed Pastor at the Valle del Sol Profiles in Success event last week. Anyone who has been around Arizona knows the former congressman’s last name is generally pronounced pass-TOR, but she referred him to him as a “PASS-ter,” as Arizona Republic reporter Richard Ruelas noted on Twitter.

Which goes to my original point. The local pronunciation of words from another language may go either way, but for the purposes of communication, the way local people say things often works best.

Rand Paul boosts Tucson author

A passing reference by a lesser GOP presidential candidate at Wednesday’s debate has meant a whole lot to Tucson author Jennifer Lee Carrell.

The debate discussion had drifted into vaccines when Rand Paul’s turn came up, and he said, “If you want to read a story, it’s called ‘The Speckled Monster.’ It’s an amazing story.”

Carrell’s 2004 book had not been selling a lot of copies lately. A friend told her it was down almost to 900,000 on Amazon’s list of best-selling books. Overnight, it shot up to 123, Carrell said. By the time I took a look Thursday, it had dropped to No. 150 overall but was still No. 1 in the category of books about viral diseases.

“Our politics are somewhat different,” Carrell said, diplomatically, of Paul. She added, “I’m very pleased that there’s history being injected into the vaccination debate. The more facts the better.”

Mayor’s campaign loaded for bear

The deadline to file as a write-in candidate for Tucson mayor is Sept. 24. But if you’re thinking about a last-minute run, you might want to consider this: The incumbent, Jonathan Rothschild, has $118,352 sitting in his campaign account and nothing much to do with it.

Rothschild faced no opposition in the primary election and so far has no competition in the general. His name will be the only one on the ballot, though you still have a few days to file as a write-in — if you dare.

GOP can’t take
stand on bonds

I’ve been waiting for the Pima County Republican Party to decide whether to oppose the seven bond issues on this year’s ballot. My thinking was that the opposition campaign might become stronger and make the campaign more interesting if it had such institutional support.

But party Chairman Bill Beard told me the GOP executive committee didn’t have a quorum of members when it was scheduled to consider the issue last week, so it will have to go on a later agenda. At that point, of course, it will hardly matter what position it takes.