Hablamos Inglés: Media Portrayals of English-Proficient Latin American MLB Players

Abstract

Latin American players comprise of a large portion of Major League Baseball (MLB). As of Opening Day 2019, 26.5 percent of MLB was from a Latin American country. Since the Latino influence is large, the purpose of this textual analysis is to determine how mainstream media frame the English-proficiency of Latin American MLB players. For a player to be eligible for this study, they must have debuted during or before the 2018 season and speak enough English to hold an interview. Once those players were determined, a Google and NewsBank search was conducted with the name of the player and a search term regarding their English ability. From that, 39 players had at least one article written about them that references their English-proficiency. Three central themes emerged: speaking English is central to success in MLB, language helps players to acculturate to American life, and the players are self-motivated to become bilingual. These findings are significant because they do not align with traditional Latino stereotypes of being uneducated, lazy, and lacking a willingness to learn.

Keywords:

• Sports communication
• framing
• English-proficiency
• Latin American baseball
• acculturation

Acknowledgments

We would like to give our sincere thanks to our advisor, Dr. Andrew C. Billings, for his help advising us on this manuscript. His assistance was vital to the final outcome of this project.