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Document Details : Title: Features and Functions of a U.S. Southwest Mexican-American Argot Author(s): ORNSTEIN-GALICIA, Jacob L. Journal: Orbis Volume: 38 Date: 1995 Pages: 113-129 DOI: 10.2143/ORB.38.0.563364 Abstract : It is argued here that excessive attention has been focused on the bizarre and secretive aspects of Chicano Caló (ChC), also known as tirilí, tirilón, tirilongo, and more recently bato loco and cholo. ChC is by and large an affective variety employed to add color, humor, shock effect, diminution, as well as exaggeration and other semantic nuances when speaking colloquial Southwest Spanish. Although beginning as a highly stigmatized speech of delinquents and asocial elements, it has worked its way upwards, utilized in varying degrees by virtually all socio-economic strata along the border save the most assimilating ones. In common with Black English, ChC has even acquired a sort of fashionable and “chic” status. |
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