Spanish in the Southeast: What a Swarm of Variables Can Tell Us about a Newly Forming Bilingual Community

The southeastern United States has experienced rapid growth in the Hispanic population recent decades, giving rise to a newly forming bilingual community. present study builds on previous work by authors via expansion of “variable swarm”: analysis multiple linguistic variables simultaneously for same set speakers, with goal understanding patterns accommodation and change within initial included four (prosodic rhythm, discourse markers, realization /bdg/ vowel space), adds an additional (bilingual filled pauses, subject pronoun realization, code switching, labiodental orthographic <v>) 23 speakers Mexican Central American origin across two sociolinguistic generations (G1 vs. G2). Results individual show pattern adoption some features both (such as English-influenced prosodic rhythm phonological pauses), while other, possibly more salient forms directly integrated from English (English markers switching) exhibit later, highly variable rates adoption, suggesting that may consciously manipulate these part process active identity construction. Likewise, G1 fewer correlations among than G2 reveal are incorporated tandem due shared traits or functions. innovative swarm further contributes advancement techniques employed research serving bridge between traditional first- second-wave studies focus single variable, third-wave variation at level.