This study investigates the use of and the attitudes towards anglicisms in Mexican
Spanish. Our aim is to find out whether and if so in what way the use and attitudes
change according to the age and gender of the speaker. The study was carried out
among 24 Mexicans living in the centre of Mexico who were divided into the age groups
18-29, 30-54, 55+ as well as gender.
The informants answered a questionnaire of which the first part investigated their use
of anglicisms, the second part investigated their attitudes towards the same. In the first
part, the participants were asked to choose between a common anglicism or its also
frequently used Spanish equivalent. In the second part, the informants were requested
to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement towards three negative and three
positive affirmations about anglicisms.
Our results show that the use of anglicisms is bigger in the youngest group of
informants and decreases with the age of the participants. Also concerning the attitudes,
we found a correlation with age where the two younger groups of informants express
neutral attitudes towards anglicisms while the attitudes of the oldest group of
participants are negative. Our results don’t show any differences between the genders
neither in use nor in attitudes.