ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses language, Hispanic heritage, the experience of being Latino in the US, and the roles these aspects play in the areas of marketing communication. Many marketers and advertising executives still talk about language and culture as if they were two separate entities, as if one could exist independent of the other. The connection between language and culture is similar to the way in which memory and emotion are linked. Thought and language are parallel. Culture is learned through interchange and human interaction. The syntax is the set of rules for assembling words, or the lexicon, in a language. The way in which we emphasize and enunciate words can carry cultural meaning as well. The symbols imbedded in the Spanish language conjure images, thoughts, and emotions that are different from those evoked by the English language. A dialect is the usage or vocabulary that is characteristic of a specific group of people.
