Socio-Economic Status and Language Prestige in the Linguistic Landscape of the U.S.-Mexico Border

Natalia Mazzaro and Raquel González de Anda

Journal of Borderlands Studies, 2025, vol. 40, issue 2, 247-278

Abstract: This study explores language choice in the public signage of a bilingual border city where the co-existing languages, Spanish and English, have unbalanced power and prestige. We analyzed 1400 signs around El Paso, Texas to investigate Spanish-English bilingualism, whether the signs reflect the demographic characteristics of the speech community, the vitality and prestige of both languages and the relationship between sign location and language choice. The results reveal that the use of English in signs is over-represented (63%) in a city where most of the population speaks Spanish at home (67%). Proximity to the border with Mexico and lower socio-economic status are strong predictors of Spanish use in signs, as are certain business categories.

Date: 2025
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/08865655.2023.2301103 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:rjbsxx:v:40:y:2025:i:2:p:247-278

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/rjbs20

DOI: 10.1080/08865655.2023.2301103

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Borderlands Studies is currently edited by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly, Henk van Houtum and Martin van der Velde

More articles in Journal of Borderlands Studies from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().