Es un mal castellano cuando decimos ‘su’: Language instruction, raciolinguistic ideologies and study abroad in Peru

Abstract

This article explores how two Quechua language teachers negotiated and reproduced raciolinguistic ideologies in the classroom during a Spanish immersion study abroad program that focused on indigenous communities in Peru. Specifically, it examines the ways that they conveyed the sociolinguistic appropriateness of racialized “double-possessive” constructions from the local variety of Spanish to a cohort of U.S. undergraduate students in Cuzco. An analysis of ethnographic data reveals that both instructors drew learners’ attention to these constructions, depicted them as signs of an incompetent Quechua-speaking identity, and affirmed the normative appropriateness of racially-unmarked sociolinguistic variants within the host society. These findings suggest that racialized language attitudes can underlie the ways that learners are taught appropriate target language practices during study abroad. This study illustrates how language instructors and study abroad programs can foster racialized ideologies of language that students may internalize as part of their development of sociolinguistic competence.