A functional-notional grammar of some aspects of Miami Cuban Spanish

The purpose of this field linguistics research is threefold: (1) To identify the different linguistic structures and the language functions the speakers of Miami Cuban Spanish produce to communicate a given semantic content in a stated social context, (2) to establish the degree of occurrence of these structural realizations and language functions, and (3) to determine the degree of influence of the English language on the Spanish form.;The language data, which have yielded the linguistic corpus for this research, were provided by 200 informants that are speakers of Cuban Spanish living in the city of Miami.;Four demographic variables are considered in this study: age group of arrival in the United States, geographical area of origin (Camaguey, La Habana, Las Villas, Matanza, Oriente, Pinar del Rio), year of arrival in the United States, and sex.;An interview-schedule of 21 notional categories of language was constructed to elicit the grammatical realizations of the language functions performed by the respondents. The utterances were recorded on tape to account for the intonation patterns, the hesitations, self-corrections, pauses, and digressions. The language data have been coded and transcribed verbatim, and in each instance the selected examples have been glossed into English.;Analysis of the language data reveals the following: In only two notional categories is there a direct relationship between a grammatical form and a language function. Additionally, there are some unanticipated language functions performed by the informants in response to a specific language situation.;Of the four demographic variables considered in this research, namely age group, geographical origin, sex, and year of arrival in the United States, the data reveal that sex and age group classification are the dominant variables in the variation of grammatical patterns, communicative functions, and influence from English.