"Macho": The singularity of a mock Spanish item

Adriana Rosalina Galván Torres

doi:10.7557/1.10.1.5577

Abstract

This paper scrutinizes the path of the semantic extension of the originally neutral Spanish term macho ‘male animal’ to the pejorative ‘animal-like man’. Semantic pejoration belongs to one of the techniques that Hill (1995b) identifies when describing Mock Spanish, a type of racist discourse used by monolingual English speakers when using single Spanish words. Prototypically, the author of the semantic change from a positive or neutral to a negative connotation of a Spanish term is the monolingual speaker of American English. This seems not to be the case with respect to macho. In the same theoretical vein as Mock Spanish, many voices attribute the semantic pejoration of macho to the US-English discourse. The objective of this paper is to identify the origin of this pejoration. Methodologically, this is conducted by means of a lexical search of the oldest pejorated macho items in Spanish, and the semantic content of the first macho borrowings in English. For this purpose, I consulted different sources, like diachronic corpora, etymological dictionaries and specialized references on the macho concept for Spanish as well as English. My analysis leads me to conclude that the semantic shift of macho, at least in its written form, developed in both sides of the Mexican-American border at the beginning of the XX century.

Highlights

1.1 The meaning of Mock Spanish Mock Spanish refers to a type of covert racist discourse described by the American anthropologist Jane Hill
According to Hill (1998, 2005) this set of tactics is used by monolingual speakers of American English to display the image of a “desirable colloquial persona” at the expenses of Spanish speakers, who are relegated to “a zone of foreignness and disorder, richly fleshed out with denigrating stereotypes.” (Hill 2008:128f) Some of the best known Mock Spanish items are the words amigo, cerveza, mañana, the phrases hasta la vista, no problemo, caca de pee pee, much-o, trouble-o and the frame el X-o, as in el cheap-o, el truck-o
In Mexican Spanish, it repeatedly occurs that Europeans or people from other nationalities are called gringas or gringos if they look like the Anglo-American type they have already personified

Summary

Introduction

Both cases are the antithesis of hasta la vista; the former because of death (= ‘I won’t be able to see you again’), the latter due to a failed relationship (= ‘I don’t want to see you ever again’) The development of this originally Spanish phrase entails a semantic pejoration with a subsequent popularization similar to the one of macho. A group of Mexican Spanish and US-English speakers created the semantic extension and subsequent pejoration of macho converting this item in one of the most successful Mock Spanish items in American English and, in many other languages. In Mexican Spanish, it repeatedly occurs that Europeans or people from other nationalities are called gringas or gringos if they look like the Anglo-American type they have already personified This is a new sign relation, a freshly-created semiosis. We will illustrate these stages in the context of the word macho

The journey to the semiosis

The macho man in American English

Conclusions