This dissertation studies and analyses instances of English-Spanish code-switching in audio-visual products. More specifically, it focuses on the award-winning crime-drama television series Dexter, which aired on the American network Showtime from 2006 to 2013. The show is based on the novel by Jeff Lindsay Darkly Dreaming Dexter and was developed for television by director James Manos Jr. In addition to my personal interest in TV series in general, there are multiple reasons behind the choice of Dexter as the source of this linguistic investigation. First of all, it is set in Miami, a city which is particularly relevant for my academic career since the main languages I study are English and Spanish. In addition, Miami is extremely interesting from the perspective of contact linguistics as it is rich in bilingual speakers, especially English-Spanish ones, who often perform code-switching. Furthermore, the series itself features a varied list of characters of different origin and ethnicity, and it faces – though not directly – the themes of immigration and multiculturalism; for instance, Angel Batista and María LaGuerta are Cuban, James Doakes is African American, and Vincent Masuka is of Japanese descent. Finally, the show, cast and crew were nominated for several awards, eventually winning, among others, four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award and five Saturn Awards. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the definition and explanation of the phenomenon of code-switching and the description of the various code-switching patterns identified by scholars over time. The second chapter introduces the TV series Dexter by summarising its plot, presenting its major characters and their use of language, and describing the context of early-2000s Miami, hence mainly focusing on the Spanish-speaking community. Finally, the third chapter analyses a selection of remarkable English-Spanish code-switching occurrences retrieved in the first three seasons of the series in order to highlight the conversational locus or loci in which they are more likely to occur.
This dissertation studies and analyses instances of English-Spanish code-switching in audio-visual products. More specifically, it focuses on the award-winning crime-drama television series Dexter, which aired on the American network Showtime from 2006 to 2013. The show is based on the novel by Jeff Lindsay Darkly Dreaming Dexter and was developed for television by director James Manos Jr. In addition to my personal interest in TV series in general, there are multiple reasons behind the choice of Dexter as the source of this linguistic investigation. First of all, it is set in Miami, a city which is particularly relevant for my academic career since the main languages I study are English and Spanish. In addition, Miami is extremely interesting from the perspective of contact linguistics as it is rich in bilingual speakers, especially English-Spanish ones, who often perform code-switching. Furthermore, the series itself features a varied list of characters of different origin and ethnicity, and it faces – though not directly – the themes of immigration and multiculturalism; for instance, Angel Batista and María LaGuerta are Cuban, James Doakes is African American, and Vincent Masuka is of Japanese descent. Finally, the show, cast and crew were nominated for several awards, eventually winning, among others, four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award and five Saturn Awards. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the definition and explanation of the phenomenon of code-switching and the description of the various code-switching patterns identified by scholars over time. The second chapter introduces the TV series Dexter by summarising its plot, presenting its major characters and their use of language, and describing the context of early-2000s Miami, hence mainly focusing on the Spanish-speaking community. Finally, the third chapter analyses a selection of remarkable English-Spanish code-switching occurrences retrieved in the first three seasons of the series in order to highlight the conversational locus or loci in which they are more likely to occur.
English-Spanish Code-switching: Detecting Conversational Loci in the American TV Series Dexter
GARRONE, GIULIA
2020/2021
Abstract
This dissertation studies and analyses instances of English-Spanish code-switching in audio-visual products. More specifically, it focuses on the award-winning crime-drama television series Dexter, which aired on the American network Showtime from 2006 to 2013. The show is based on the novel by Jeff Lindsay Darkly Dreaming Dexter and was developed for television by director James Manos Jr. In addition to my personal interest in TV series in general, there are multiple reasons behind the choice of Dexter as the source of this linguistic investigation. First of all, it is set in Miami, a city which is particularly relevant for my academic career since the main languages I study are English and Spanish. In addition, Miami is extremely interesting from the perspective of contact linguistics as it is rich in bilingual speakers, especially English-Spanish ones, who often perform code-switching. Furthermore, the series itself features a varied list of characters of different origin and ethnicity, and it faces – though not directly – the themes of immigration and multiculturalism; for instance, Angel Batista and María LaGuerta are Cuban, James Doakes is African American, and Vincent Masuka is of Japanese descent. Finally, the show, cast and crew were nominated for several awards, eventually winning, among others, four Primetime Emmy Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, one Screen Actors Guild Award and five Saturn Awards. The dissertation consists of three chapters. The first chapter focuses on the definition and explanation of the phenomenon of code-switching and the description of the various code-switching patterns identified by scholars over time. The second chapter introduces the TV series Dexter by summarising its plot, presenting its major characters and their use of language, and describing the context of early-2000s Miami, hence mainly focusing on the Spanish-speaking community. Finally, the third chapter analyses a selection of remarkable English-Spanish code-switching occurrences retrieved in the first three seasons of the series in order to highlight the conversational locus or loci in which they are more likely to occur. | File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14240/80010