“REAL SPANISH:” HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE IDEOLOGICAL CONSTRUCTION OF A (FOREIGN) LANGUAGE

Abstract

This paper provides a multidisciplinary perspective on the complex relationality between foreign language education and the historical production and reproduction of language ideologies. It is argued that the construct of real Spanish is legitimated and invested with authority and authenticity with respect to the Native Standard Language, a constellation of hegemonic ideologies of language, (non)standardness, and (non)nativeness. This paper explores the recontextualization of native standard Spanish as a presumptively real language used by real speakers within the emerging ideologies, practices, and institutions of modernity, imperialism, and colonialism in Europe and the Americas. Drawing on critical approaches that recognize the role of standardization in constructing inequalities in changing global, national, and local contexts, this paper questions the prevailing assumption of standards that informs the teaching and learning of Spanish in the United States. A tentative proposal is outlined for exploring critically reflexive perspectives on the authenticating practices attached to the standardizing accounts of real language and identity in foreign language education. Educators and researchers are urged to embrace an ethical engagement and responsibility with respect to the complexity, contingency, and diversity of language practices and speaker identities surrounding Spanish.