Click on the following links. Please note these will open in a new window.

Within most cultures there are groups of people who differ in some custom, habit, or practice from the general societal culture. In your book, the term microculture is used to refer to those identifiable groups of people who share the set of values, beliefs, and behaviors of the macro-culture, possess a common history, and use a verbal and nonverbal symbol system.

Most microcultural groups are groups of individuals who have much in common with the larger macro-culture yet are bonded together by similar experiences, traits, values, or in some cases, histories. Hence the term microculture includes different types of groups that could be classified by age, sexual preference, disability (e.g., deaf), ethnicity, race, size, or even occupation. Hispanics/Latinos comprise the largest microcultural group in the United States. Asian-Americans are the fastest growing microcultural group in the US.

Audio Link: Spanglish, A New American Language
Description: At this site, you can listen to an interview with Ilan Stavans, author of the book, Spanglish: The Making of a New American Language, and hear examples of Spanglish, the language spoken by many Hispanics/Latinos.

Web Link: The Rise of Asian Americans
Description: As mentioned in Chapter Three, Asian Americans are the highest-income, best-educated, and fastest-growing microcultural group in the U.S, now making up the largest share of recent immigrants. At the following interactive web page you’ll find a Pew Research report on the rise of Asian-Americans, maps that explore Asian-American population data, and an interactive feature that shows the demographics by Asian Origin group (i.e., Japanese, Chinese, Hmong, etc).

Web Link: http://www.cal.org/
Description: The Center for Applied Linguistics (CAL), established in 1959, is a private, nonprofit organization whose goal is to improve communication through a better understanding of language and culture. The CAL has a web page that includes a variety of research-based information and resources related to language and culture.