Intertextuality as Source and Evidence for Indirect Indexical Meanings

AGoogle search conducted on a single Mock Spanish lexical item, "manana," produces an intertextual series comparable to the kind of exposure to multiple tokens of Mock Spanish that English speakers might encounter over a much longer period of time. Tokens of "manana" are consciously associated with Spanish speakers and exhibit a narrow range of "keys," ranging from the jocular to the pejorative. The pejorative senses of /man'yane/ are sometimes accompanied by overtly negative stereotyping of Spanish speakers. The properties of the intertextual series support hypotheses previously developed about the indexical functions of Mock Spanish, a set of lexical items that can be used to create a particular colloquial tone in most varieties of English.