Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 56-61).

Esta tesis indaga acerca de algunos de los aspectos lingüísticos y discursivos presentes en la construcción de la narrativa de la autora chicana Sandra Cisneros (1954-). En contraposición a la literatura canónica, la literatura chicana se define como escritura de minorías. Según G. Deleuze y F. Guattari (1975), una literatura de minorías se caracteriza por la desterritorialización de una lengua mayoritaria a través de su uso en esa literatura, la articulación de loindividual en lo inmediato político y el dispositivo colectivo de enunciación. La obra de S. Cisneros, que se desarrolla principalmente a partir del inglés, pone de manifiesto el contacto entre el español y el inglés de un modo particular. En este trabajo, se analiza el fenómeno del contacto de lenguas vinculado a la traducción literal, cuya presencia se vuelve un rasgo distintivo del estilo de la autora y una estrategia clave para la desterritorialización del lenguaje. En este sentido, la hipótesis central de nuestra investigación indica que bajo la apariencia de una única lengua, el inglés (L1), hay otra lengua, el español (L2), que se manifiesta en la utilización de alguno de sus niveles (léxico-semántico, pragmático, morfosintáctico o gráfico), lo cual contribuye a la desterritorialización de L1 y constituye un caso especial de alternancia de lenguas. Esta hipótesis ha guiado la clasificación del corpus de esta investigación constituido por frases y estructuras que registran cierta fijación,pertenecientes a la colección de relatos Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (1991). El interés en estas formas reside en que si bien aparecen expresadas en inglés, remiten al español como marco discursivo, acentuando el carácter heterogéneo constitutivo de toda palabra. Dado que la traducción literal no integra los modelos sociolingüísticos revisados (S. Poplack: 1982; C. Myers-Scotton: 1993a y 1993b) y considerando que el contacto de lenguastambién se manifiesta a través de esta operación de traducción, que conforma un punto de heterogeneidad fuerte, fue necesario buscar una teoría lingüísticaque pudiera explicar la complejidad el discurso de Cisneros. Así, la teoría de las heterogeneidades enunciativas (J. Authier-Revuz: 1984, 1995) se presenta como un marco más amplio para el estudio de las marcas de heterogeneidad y desterritorialización en el seno de la narrativa de S. Cisneros. Esta perspectivateórica, que da cuenta de los procesos que se ponen en marcha en la constitución del discurso y atiende, entre otras, la función de las marcas gráficas presentes en el texto escrito, propone un marco más amplio para abordar nuestro objeto. Son dos los objetivos principales de esta investigación: describir la operación de desterritorialización en el interior de este discurso y establecer relaciones entre algunos de los modelos que abordan el estudio de la alternancia de lenguas (S. Poplack: 1982; C. Myers-Scotton: 1993a y 1993b) y la teoría de las heterogeneidades enunciativas propuesta por J. Authier-Revuz (1984, 1995).

Thesis (M.A.)--Cleveland State University, 2007 / Abstract. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on May 8, 2008). Includes bibliographical references (p. 41-42). Available online via the OhioLINK ETD Center. Also available in print.

Swedish curricula and syllabi constitute a richness of different considerations. Withinthis composition of principles, it is distinctly declared that all Swedish schools should counteract any inclination of discrimination and that intolerance must be answered with different measures, including knowledge (Skolverket, 2011b, 1). Scrutinizing ways in which knowledge can be used as an instrument towards these issues is therefore incentivized. On this token, the following essay investigates the potentiality of usingthe novel The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros in English 7 instruction in upper secondary school, as teaching material for imparting knowledge about different forms of discrimination. To achieve this purpose, the essay first examines the experiences of narrator and protagonist Esperanza Cordero through close reading, to explore how tacit and explicit racial and class-based discrimination shape her identity and inhibit her sense of belonging. Belonging is conceptualized through Benedict Anderson’s notion of imagined communities wherein an individual is viewed as bargaining for belonging towards delimited and delimiting communities. Identity is viewed through a sociological lens as a transformative, negotiable, and revocable phenomenon and as interlinked with asymmetrical power relations. In addition, the essay analyses the findings from the close reading in relation to the syllabus for the course English 7, and the curriculum for upper secondary school. On this basis, the essay maintains that The House on Mango Street is suitable teaching material for the course English 7 at upper secondary school. The results indicate an alignment between the principles stated in the steering documents and the findings of the analyses, illustrating the applicability of The House on Mango Street as teaching material within a Swedish school setting. Furthermore, the results reveal how the novel presents teachers with ample opportunities to mediate how forms of discrimination are intertwined with questions of identity and belonging.

My thesis discusses the ways in which Sandra Cisneros makes historical claims from a Chicana perspective by telling fictional family stories in Caramelo. Not only have Chicanas traditionally been marginalized ethnically by the Anglo mainstream, they have also suffered disenfranchisement as women in their own male-dominated cultural community. Both elements have contributed to the cultural silencing of Chicanas outside of domestic spaces, and particularly in historical discourse. Cisneros introduces storytelling as a means of empowering Chicanas through language that allows them to speak historically and still signify culturally. By telling stories from the site of the family, she ingeniously utilizes a culturally allotted authority over the domestic sphere to branch out and discuss historical issues as they inform the lives of her Chicana narrator's family members. Thus, she succeeds in breaking the traditions of her culture that would silence Chicanas while allowing them to maintain their cultural identities. Presenting her historical assertions through fiction allows Cisneros to avoid the pitfalls of post-Enlightenment epistemological modes in historical discourse, introduce new perspectives on historical events, and invite historical discussion rather than shutting it off. Because all historical accounts are narratives that have been constructed by biased individuals, history and story are essentially the same. Cisneros calls attention to this concept as she conflates history and story in her novel. Empirically minded historians of the past insisted on one true version of history and thus ignored "other" viewpoints. Fiction creates a new space for discussion that does not disregard alternative viewpoints because it does not pretend to be fact. In addition, Cisneros employs an abundance of Chicano pop cultural references in Caramelo to create a cultural mythology for the Chicano community. Chicanos are alienated by the mainstream cultures on both sides of the border, and thus they generally feel culturally invalidated. By invoking pop cultural forms, primarily the telenovela, Cisneros fosters collectivity among Chicanos who can all relate to the signs of pop culture, which makes itself available to everyone regardless of class, race, gender, or geographic position. She asserts new views of history through the lens of pop culture, and strengthens the ability of Chicanos to enter historical discourse by strengthening cultural cohesiveness. Cisneros is helping to redefine American literature by calling attention to at least one of the marginal voices that are rapidly becoming the center in the United States.

Treating Sandra Cisneros' The House on Mango Street and Chang-rae Lee's Native Speaker as Erziehungsroman—that is, stories whose coming-of-age process depends on the characters' education—reveals the similar process that both Esperanza Cordero and Henry Park experience as they navigate the 1960s and 1970s American school system. The most important obstacle in Esperanza's and Henry's ability to achieve academically is the contract of vagueness, the tacit agreement between federal education policy and English language learning (ELL) students to misunderstand one another. Differing cultural conceptions of education perpetuate this mutually detrimental relationship between education policy and ELL students, forcing Henry and Esperanza to choose between satisfying the cultural expectations of their ethnic communities and fulfilling the cultural expectations of their schools, a decision which initially appears mutually exclusive. Exacerbated by their school experiences, both Henry and Esperanza go through a process of rejecting and reclaiming their ethnicity as they come to terms with their ethnic identity. That both characters eventually turn to social advocacy as a solution not only to their own educational struggles but also to the ghettoization of their ethnic communities suggests cosmopolitanism as a solution to the constraints of the contract of vagueness, both for Henry and Esperanza and for their ethnic communities.

The literature written and being spoken by writers of Mexican origin in the United States continues to reformulate the notion of borders as well as subjects and forms within and beyond the house leitmotif. Writings by Sandra Cisneros, Pat Mora, and Tomás Rivera construct public and private spaces that merit validation in historical, literary, and cultural contexts. As architects, Chicana and Chicano writers challenge the nationalist canon and house. / text

This dual thesis seeks to explore the implications of socioeconomic class position for the formation of gender and sexual identities. Utilizing social theories of class and gender, I suggest that because a disadvantageous class location frames social relations in terms of privilege and movement, gender and sexual identities are thus similarly conceptualized; effectively, gender performance and sexual behaviors become attached to notions of value and movement. I turn to Sandra Cisneros's The House on Mango Street to think through the nuances of such an argument, highlighting the experiences of foiled characters Sally and Esperanza to realize how classed confines and gendered expectations literally and figuratively shape their understandings of social relations and movement.

My study aims to reveal how ideologies, the way we perceive our world, what we believe, and our value judgments inextricably linked to a dominant discourse, have real and material consequences. In addition to explicating how these ideologies stem from a Western philosophical tradition, this thesis examines this thought-system alongside selections from Sandra Cisneros’ Woman Hollering Creek and Caramelo or Puro Cuento. My project reveals how Cisneros’ spatial narratives challenge ideologies concerning the border separating the United States and Mexico, which proves significant as the project of decolonization and understanding of identity formation is fundamentally tied to these geographical spaces. Through the main chapters in this thesis, it is proposed that Cisneros’ storytelling does not attempt to counter fixed ideas of spaces and identity or an alleged objective Truth and single History by presenting a true or better version, but offers alternative narratives as a form of resistance to dominant discourse.

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