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The urban Spanglish of Mexico City

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posted on 2020-01-01, 00:00 authored by Cristina Garduno Freeman, Beau BezaBeau Beza, Glenda Mejía
Place is a potent and widely used concept in the Anglophone discourses of cultural geography, urban planning, heritage and environmental psychology; it refers specifically to our connections to particular spaces; to our attachments and the way identity and culture are entangled in the physical environments we inhabit. Yet when we move out of the Anglophone sphere, into the realms created by other languages and cultures, such as the Spanish language, we find that the potency of the term ‘place’ is lost in its translation and application because of its ambiguity. Instead, more specific and less slippery terms are used: lugar, sitio, ambiente, entorno, each with their own semantic characteristics and, often, culturally specific meanings. We explore the translations, both linguistic and spatial, between the Anglophone and Hispanophone lexicons of place by examining literary and analytical discussions and memories of Mexico City to explore how language structures distinct understandings of the same physical spaces.

History

Title of book

Routledge handbook of place

Series

Routledge handbooks

Chapter number

17

Pagination

198 - 207

Publisher

Routledge

Place of publication

Abingdon, Eng.

ISBN-13

9781138320499

ISBN-10

1138320498

Language

eng

Publication classification

B1 Book chapter

Extent

63

Editor/Contributor(s)

Tim Edensor, Ares Kalandides, Uma Kothari

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