ABSTRACT
The relationship which exists between national identity and the use of anglicisms in everyday Spanish speech has been the focus of many heated discussions but of few efforts at scientific verification. The presence of foreign words in advertisements for consumer products in Mexico, the "Spanish-ization" of English words, and the scattered appearance of words taken directly from English can easily lead one to envision a gradual deterioration in the everyday Spanish spoken by many persons in Mexico. The most logical manner of resistance is to attempt to verify scientifically the degree of truth or falsity to be found in the hypothesis that the greater the geographic proximity to a foreign country, the weaker will be the sense of national identity. A regression analysis between the variables "use of anglicisms," or language usage, and "national identity" did not provide any statistical support for the central working hypothesis.
