Intergenerational use of Garifuna and Spanish in seven Garifuna communities in Honduras

Abstract

This paper presents a research study of the use of Garifuna and Spanish among and across three age-groups (children, parents and grandparents) based on spontaneous and planned observations of family interactions in seven villages on the Caribbean coast of Honduras. Using a quantitative and qualitative methodology for first-hand data processing, it was observed that, although the three age-groups switch between Spanish and Garifuna, it is the children's group that introduces more Spanish in daily interactions. It was observed that Spanish exchanges from the children´s group doubled those from the grandparents' group. The linguistic attitudes of the youngsters can be understood as variants of an identity function. However, there is still some balance between both languages as the speakers continue to use the non-dominant language, Garifuna, in informal contexts and in home.