Overview of the Hispanic Community in Northeast Georgia, Including General Patterns of Language Use

A general description is given of the Hispanic community in Northeast Georgia with reference to its history, current status, and immigration patterns. This community is compared to other present and past Hispanic communities, especially in the U.S. and some bilingual communities in other countries. Language and social data were obtained from a sample of 56 Northeast Georgia Hispanic community members. Speakers of both sexes and from two age groups (children and adults) were interviewed and observed while engaged in conversations. Since the language data in the conversations from each speaker are correlated with their social data, explanations are given in this chapter of how the data were collected and transcribed and how the social information was collected from the speakers by means of a questionnaire. Explanation is also given in this chapter on how provisions were made to ensure that the conversations were as natural as possible. Social (extralinguistic) data patterns and tendencies of the Northeast Georgia Hispanic community are presented, including country of origin of each informant, age, gender, socioeconomic status, education, employment or for children their parents’ employment, amount of time in the U.S, amount of schooling in the U.S., reported language use of each language (including Spanish, English, and any other language), and attitudes of informants regarding use of each language. General patterns of language use are also presented.