Spanish at Work — Analysing the Discourse of Institutions

Abstract

This book examines discourse in the Spanish-speaking world across a range of institutional and professional settings, ranging from television soaps and the Internet to bars and psychiatric institutions. This is designed to reflect the fact that the Spanish-speaking world both contains many varieties of Spanish and embraces other languages. Hence several chapters of this book examine institutional discourse that occurs within linguistic spaces where different varieties of Spanish are spoken. Some chapters assess how institutional discourse is framed by — and frames — speakers’ use of regional languages, or lenguas propias (Woolard 2005). And still others scrutinise discourse practices in institutional contexts in which Spanish coexists with other ‘global’ languages. The 12 case studies and accompanying contextualisation chapters that comprise Spanish at Work cumulatively offer a fascinating window into a permeably rich discursive tapestry of institutional settings within the Spanish-speaking world.