15. Conceptos

15.1. Conceptos

15.1.1. Ideología lingüística

{Díaz-Campos et al., 2020}

The topic of language ideology and standardization, and how it ties to race, is examined in a study by Rosa (2016) that presents a theoretical account of how standardization contributes to social practices of inclusion and exclusion, depending on sociopolitical contexts, ethnic group status, and linguistic practices. Rosa (2016, p. 163) has argued that US Latinos are commonly regarded as suffering a state of “languagelessness” — that is, a perceived linguistic incompetence and deficiency in their use of English and Spanish. Bilingualism is seen as an impediment to acquiring English “natively.” This general concept reflects ideologies of language standardization, in which cultural homogeneity is linked to the use of a single dominant language at the expense of minority languages. This historical construct originated in the emergence of European nation-states and the monoglot policies that they supported (and that supported them). Rosa, using a race-based analysis, has argued that Latinos in the United States are stigmatized and delegitimized as a result of Anglo-centric language policies. For example, standardized multilingual practices tend to present minority groups as linguistically and intellectually inferior to monolingual speakers of so-called Standard English. One of Rosa’s main conclusions is that Latinos, who sometimes are seen as linguistically deficient, may need to overcome language barriers to be viewed as “legitimate” members of US society.

15.1.2. Languaging

https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ944141.pdf

«Languaging» is the term we have been using to refer to the activity of mediating cognitively complex ideas using language (see, for example, Knouzi, Swain, Lapkin, & Brooks, 2010; Swain, 2006; 2010; Swain, Lapkin, Knouzi, Suzuki, & Brooks, 2009). The term languaging characterizes language as a process (verb) rather than a product (noun). The term suggests that speaking and writing are themselves language production activities that mediate remembering, attending, and other aspects of higher mental functioning. In other words, as we talk or write, our attention is focused on certain objects or ideas and not others; we create artifacts that we can refer back to, challenge and change – processes that help us to remember and learn (Swain & Lapkin, 2006, p. 2).

https://www.amazon.com/Languaging-Without-Languages-Language-Cognition/dp/9004364587/ref=sr_1_1

Drawing on usage-based theory, neurocognition, and complex systems, Languaging Beyond Languages elaborates an elegant model accommodating accumulated insights into human language even as it frees linguistics from its two-thousand-year-old, ideological attachment to reified grammatical systems. Idiolects are redefined as continually emergent collections of context specific, probabilistic memories entrenched as a result of domain-general cognitive processes that create and consolidate linguistic experience. Also continually emergent, conventionalization and vernacularization operate across individuals producing the illusion of shared grammatical systems. Conventionalization results from the emergence of parallel expectations for the use of linguistic elements organized into syntagmatic and paradigmatic relationships. In parallel, vernacularization indexes linguistic forms to sociocultural identities and stances. Evidence implying entrenchment and conventionalization is provided in asymmetrical frequency distributions.

https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-56138-3_3

In turn, a key feature of García and colleagues” (García & Li Wei, 2014; Otheguy, García & Reid, 2015, 2018) theory of translanguaging is the determination to not ontologically separate English from Spanish, or L1 (first language), from L2 (second language) …

15.2. Estudios

15.2.1. Hill

{Díaz-Campos et al., 2020}

Prominent work in this area is found in studies by Hill (1993, 1995, 1998), who analyzed the origins and features of Spanish in the southwestern United States. Historically, contact between Hispanics and English speakers in the Southwest increased after the United States” annexation of Spanish-dominant territories through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1854. Hill (1993) pointed out that terminology came into Spanish in three areas. The first realm of Spanish linguistic influence was related to farm life, cattle raising, and food traditions. The second area of influence was promotional tourism and words related to historical sites and events. Hill used the term “español nouvelle,” defined as the use of Spanish to evoke an idyllic era of colonization, for this promotion. The third area of Spanish usage was “mock Spanish” — the ironic use of the language by English speakers as a symbolic tool to reject Hispanic culture and reproduce dominant social structures. Hill’s research on mock Spanish has analyzed the social contexts and the cultural indices that help uncover prejudice against Hispanic culture in the region. The concept of index is a crucial element in this research as it references the cultural knowledge necessary for the interpretation of mock Spanish.

15.2.2. Urciuoli

{Díaz-Campos et al., 2020}

As Urciuoli (1995) has pointed out, stigmatization of less prestigious languages or language varieties is often an effect of ethnolinguistic borders that emerge as a result of sociopolitical and economic factors. In her article, Urciuoli argued that the notion of code contrast and code switching must be understood both at the micro level of linguistic analysis (i.e., form and function) and at the macro level of analysis (i.e., speakers’ social realities). That is, while linguistic inquiry is often concerned with what gets borrowed or the formal and functional details of when speakers switch, understanding speakers’ social realities of what these phenomena mean in their communities and how these phenomena affect their day-to-day lives is essential to understanding other social practices such as social- and context-dependent meaning, language standardization, and social injustice.

15.3. Fuentes

  • Díaz-Campos, M., Escalona Torres, J. M., Filimonova, V. 2020. Sociolinguistics of the Spanish-speaking world. 6: 363-388