On September 25th, Prof. Cecilia Montes-Alcalá delivered an invited talk about the perceptions of Spanish-English mixing at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, sponsored by the Spanish Program of the Department of Modern Languages & Classics. In her presentation, Prof. Montes-Alcalá talked about the misconceptions and controversies surrounding the so-called Spanglish, the realities of language contact in bilingual communities, and the impact of language attitudes on the future of Spanish in the US.

In her presentation, Montes-Alcalá discussed how the mix of Spanish and English is a natural, albeit often poorly understood, behavior in the discourse of bilingual individuals. "Misconceptions surrounding the so-called Spanglish influence our attitudes towards the present and future of Spanish in the US," says Montes-Alcalá. Her presentation concluded with a discussion of the principles established in language mixing as well as the valuable functions it performs in bilingual communities.

Dr. Cecilia Montes-Alcalá received her PhD in Hispanic Linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara. She joined the Georgia Tech faculty in 2004 as an Assistant Professor of Spanish & Linguistics in the School of Modern Languages.