ABSTRACT
Chapter 2 presents a brief explanation regarding the linguistic features and behaviors that have been documented by researchers who investigate linguistic mitigation in English and Spanish. The chapter does not draw parallels or comparisons to Spanish, although in several instances, it calls attention to several linguistic behaviors that may not have similar features in both languages. The chapter underscores that it is impossible to discuss all the research conducted in these two languages so it therefore summarizes how empirical studies have approached examining isolated lexical items and syntactic structures to show how attenuating utterances have been analyzed. The main goal of the chapter is to illustrate the diverse approaches that scholars have used to investigate this phenomenon, to inform researchers, and to provide a guide or a script for future endeavors.
