Sociolinguistic ISSN: 1750-8649 (print)

Studies ISSN: 1750-8657 (online)

Review

Language ideologies and the globalization

of ‘standard’ Spanish
Darren Paffey (2012)
London and New York: Bloomsbury. Pp. vii + 196.
ISBN 978-1-44-11874-06

Reviewed by Angela Bartens

The volume under review is a revised version of Darren Paffey’s 2008 University
of Southampton doctoral dissertation. In it, the author addresses the issue of
language ideologies in the globalization of Standard Spanish. Or ‘Standard’
Spanish, as he terms it. He considers that nowadays, the media constitute a or
even the primary vehicle for the spread of ideologies about the Spanish language.
Therefore, the material analyzed was gathered from two major Spanish news-
papers, El País and ABC, over the time span 1997–2007, a period when the Royal
Spanish Academy (Real Academia Española, RAE) was already clearly committed
to its current modernization process. Diagnostic of this commitment, the period
examined starts with the First International Congress of the Spanish Language
(Congreso Internacional de Lengua Española, CILE) and terminates with its
fourth edition. In addition, the Panhispanic Dictionary of Doubts (Diccionario
panhispánico de dudas, DPD) was published in 2005 in response to the tens of
thousands of questions received by the distinct language academies of the
Spanish-speaking world grouped together under the umbrella of the Association
of Spanish Language Academies (Asociación de Academias de la Lengua
Española, ASALE). The choice of precisely these newspapers is justified by the fact
that within Spanish mainstream journalism, El País mostly seconds the views
of the Socialist Party, ABC those of the center-right Popular Party. As with

Affiliation

University of Turku, Finland

e-mail: angbar@utu.fi

SOLS VOL 9.2-3 2015335–339 doi: 10.1558/sols.v9i2.26269

© 2015, EQUINOX PUBLISHING
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most studies couched in the framework of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), the
purpose of the book is to raise awareness instead of constituting just an ‘academic
exercise’. In addition, the author points out that understanding how standard
language ideology works, enables us to challenge it (pp. 4–5).
Chapter 1 of the volume is a general presentation of language ideologies, CDA
and its aims, and media discourse. Paffey argues that ‘[o]ne of the many things
that discourse can achieve is the legitimization and naturalization of particular
understandings of society […] through the manufacturing [of] consent’ (p. 25). In
this case, consent is manufactured to justify the need for standardization as a
response to linguistic globalization. Major topics of the chapter – and the entire
study – are the role Spanish plays in the present-day world as well as the ensuing
question of its linguistic unity and the role of the RAE and other ‘language guar-
dians’ in this discussion. As discourses target the macro level of society through
the micro level of texts and specific linguistic structures, the study ‘investigates
lexical choices (classifications, collocations, ideologically significant/contested
terms, connotative vs denotative meaning, metaphors, metonyms, synonyms) and
grammatical choices (agency, nominalizations, active vs passive, modality, deixis)’
(p. 29).
Chapter 2 deals with language authorities and the standardization of Spanish
and shows the interrelationships between these actors and the trafficking of
influence which potentially (and actually) results from these connections. First, all
Spanish language authorities – or ‘guardians’ – depend in one way or another on
the Government of Spain which has, for obvious reasons, a keen interest in
educational issues, a fact particularly emphasized in discourses targeted at
national audiences. As far as The Cervantes Institute (Instituto Cervantes, IC), the
institution in charge of teaching, learning and promoting the Spanish language
and culture in countries the official language of which is not Spanish since its
founding in 1991, is concerned, the King of Spain is its honorary president and
the incumbent president of the Spanish Government is its executive president.
The incumbent president of the RAE is president of Fundéu, a 2005-founded
language planning institution which, for instance, offers advice on correct
language use, has made agreements with the media, and awards certificates to
companies using ‘good language’. With the backing of transnational corporations
such as IBM, Microsoft, and Telefónica, the RAE is rising to the challenge of an
increasingly technology-literate society.
Chapter 3 discusses the linguistic unity of the global Spanish-speaking
community. Whereas the RAE actively ‘promotes the idea of unity and an
international community to which all Spanish speakers belong’ (p. 82), we are
 REVIEW: BARTENS 337

rather dealing with an imagined community, pace Anderson (1983). The mainly
Spain-based language authorities (and the companies behind them) associate
Spanish with democratic values, solidarity, and peace, stressing the relational
value of ‘us’ vs. ‘them’ (cf. Fairclough, 2001; van Dijk, 2003) in a common home-
land based on a common cultural heritage and Pan-Hispanic unity – which, in
turn, justifies standardization. However, this common heritage is unmistakeably
associated with a historical territory: Spain and, more specifically, Castile.
In Chapter 4, the role and authority of the RAE and other guardians of the
Spanish language come under closer scrutiny. While the RAE repeatedly stresses
that its mission is descriptively to mirror and capture actual language use to the
effect that the agency and responsibility for language change and innovation is
placed with the users, its role continues to be, in practice, highly prescriptive.
Indeed, the RAE justifies being the leading language policy and planning
institution in the Hispanic world through its expertise arising from the historicity,
continuity, and effectiveness of its activities. Whereas the RAE declares to labor at
the service of the language and its unity, Paffey demonstrates that it clearly does
so also at the service of the Spanish state (p. 125). The other guardians discussed
in this chapter are the King of Spain, the IC, and the media.
Chapter 5 examines the role of the Spanish language in the world. Albeit a
pluricentric language, pace Kloss (1967), the fact that modern capitalist discourses
highlight the economic value of languages has led the RAE and other language
guardians to emphasize the existence of a common, global, even ‘total’ Spanish.
The Spanish from nowhere is to become the Spanish for everywhere (p. 153).
However, as the language guardians and the commercial entities supporting them
are predominantly based in Spain, Spain continues to dominate the norm, just not
as overtly as before. The language guardians’ discourses stress anonymity and
downplay linguistic colonialism as well as the fact that Spanish constitutes a
linguistic vehicle to assure Spain’s economic, political, and cultural interests.
Indeed, Paffey argues that the political, diplomatic, and commercial unity
constitutes the hidden agenda of the RAE and the other language guardians which
identify English as a particular threat. As a result, one of the goals of the
Pan-Hispanic Language Policy is to enter the domains where English predomin-
ates and which thence have been pointed out as deficit domains of Spanish:
scientific publishing, information technology, the internet, and international
diplomatic forums. The 21st century has been declared a new golden age for
Spanish – but it appears to be likewise the era of the economic re-colonization
of Latin America.
338 SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDIES

In the Conclusions, Paffey summarizes the findings of his study. He found the
newspaper press to constitute a discursive space which effectively carries out the
RAE’s prescriptive discourse and rightfully concludes that language standardi-
zation is not a value-free activity (p. 180), as ideological and political factors
impact upon and inform public debates on language standardization and the
discourses and practices of the institutions involved (p. 172).
This exemplary study shows in a minutious way what is behind the discourses
on the standardization of global Spanish, and the ‘historical legitimization’ of
Spain to act in Latin America (cf. del Valle, 2012: 476–477). In addition to
functioning as the vehicle of the economic, political, and cultural interests of a
specific nation or group of nations – and obviously also as a result of this – a
language gains and maintains its market value (cf. Bourdieu, 1992). The case of
Spanish is unique at least in the following respects: the former existence of an
extensive colonial empire which came to an end with the loss of the last colonies
in 1898, leading to a national trauma and the strengthening of the Pan-Hispanic
Language Policy (e.g., del Valle, 2012); it is set in the tradition of language
academies of the Romance language-speaking or -dominated world which has led
to the founding of academies for totally unrelated languages such as the
Guatemalan Academy of Mayan Languages (Academia de Lenguas Mayas de
Guatemala, ALMG); there is a very strong tendency among all speakers to
associate correct language use with a pronunciation which maximizes the
phoneme-grapheme correspondence (cf. Bello, 1963). I consider that these
characteristics, in conjunction, distinguish the case of Spanish from, for instance,
the case of German. But there are also many common features: the Federal
Republic of Germany is currently actively pursuing its economic, political, and
cultural interests especially in Eastern Europe first and foremost through its
network of Goethe Institutes. This expansionist language policy dates back to the
1880s but has lately been construed as an apolitical and ahistorical endeavor
which, of course, it is not (cf. Nord, 2006). German, too, is a polycentric language
where one state has assumed the leading role through expansionist language
policy (cf. Borčić and Wollinger, 2008). Besides the valuable suggestions for future
research made by Paffey which deal with language ideologies in the Hispanic
world (pp. 180–181), it might therefore be insightful to compare the latest
developments in language policy and language ideologies across different
language areas.
 REVIEW: BARTENS 339

References
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Identität und Sprachpolitik. Informatologia 41(2): 156–160
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