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When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", University of Southampton, name of the University School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination http://eprints.soton.ac.uk UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON FACULTY OF LAW, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE & IDEOLOGY: THE REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA AND THE STANDARDISATION OF SPANISH by Darren J. Paffey Thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2008 UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON ABSTRACT FACULTY OF LAW, ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES SCHOOL OF HUMANITIES Doctor of Philosophy LANGUAGE, DISCOURSE & IDEOLOGY: THE REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA AND THE STANDARDISATION OF SPANISH by Darren J. Paffey This thesis aims to investigate the nature of ideologies of language, and specifically to understand what kinds of linguistic, social, political and historical factors impact upon and inform ideologies of standardisation. I consider the particular case of the Spanish language, and examine how public debates in Spain’s press constitute discursive sites in which the ideologies of language authorities are evidenced. There are few studies which identify and critique the social actors in Spanish standardisation, and this thesis is a contribution to addressing that absence. By adopting a Critical Discourse Analysis approach , I seek to relate the microstructures of texts from two of Spain’s best-selling daily newspapers ( El País and ABC ) to the socio-political macrostructures in which press discourse is produced, and in which hegemonic ideologies underpin debates about Spanish. The press is a crucial vehicle of transmission in which language ideologies are staked out, and the large data corpus allows me to identify recurring aspects of discourse which become ‘naturalised’ and form ‘common sense’ beliefs about Spanish, its role, its authorities, and the practices of those who ‘guard’ the language. The principal guardian of Spanish, the Real Academia Española (RAE), is the particular focus of this thesis. I interrogate RAE discourse and shed light on this institution’s role in producing and maintaining a ‘standard’ Spanish in the contemporary context. Discourses of language unity and community are central, as are themes which form a vision of Spanish on an international scale. I argue that the RAE’s discourse serves to reinforce its authority and leadership in standardisation. I further argue that this centralisation of linguistic authority is occurring simultaneously with a rescaling and expansion of standardisation practices which go beyond the nation-state paradigm in pursuit of a ‘total Spanish’ guided by ‘panhispanic norms’. The role of other elite institutions in the panhispanic language policy is also legitimised in press discourse, with important social, cultural and commercial implications for not just Spain, but the entire Spanish-speaking world. i C O N T E N T S Abstract i C o n t e n t s i i Declaration of Authorship vi Acknowledgements v i i List of Abbreviations v i i i INTRODUCTION CONTEXT OF THE STUDY 1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS 6 C H A P T E R 1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (i): LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES 9 1.1 INTRODUCTION 9 1.2 CONCEPTUALISING IDEOLOGY 10 1.2.1 Language, community and ideology 10 1.2.2 Definitions of ideology 11 1.3 CONSTRUCTING LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY 14 1.3.1 Linguistic factors 14 1.3.2 Socio-political factors 16 1.3.3 Historical factors 17 1.3.4 Dialectical factors: dominant vs. dominated ideologies 18 1.4 CONTEXTUALISING LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY 21 1.4.1 Historical specificity 21 1.4.2 Sites of ideology 22 1.5 CONTROLLING IDEOLOGY 25 1.5.1 Ideological brokers 25 1.5.2 Institutions and ‘publics’ 27 1.6 IDEOLOGY WITHIN RESEARCH 30 1.7 SUMMARY 31 C H A P T E R 2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK (ii): STANDARD LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY 33 2.1 INTRODUCTION 33 2.2 LANGUAGE STANDARDISATION 34 2.2.1 Writing 34 ii 2.2.2 Hierarchy 36 2.2.3 Literacy 38 2.3 NATIONALISM , DIALECT AND LANGUAGE 39 2.3.1 Structure versus function 40 2.3.2 Population of speakers 41 2.3.3 Functions of standard language 42 2.3.4 Development of standardisation 44 2.4 STANDARD LANGUAGE IDEOLOGY 49 2.4.1 SLI as a process 51 2.4.2 SLI discourse 57 2.4.3 Sites of ideological discourse 61 2.4.4 SLI and ‘prestige by transfer’ 64 2.4.5 Mechanisms of SLI 70 2.4.5.1 Language academies 71 2.4.5.2 Educational institutions 74 2.4.5.3 Media 76 2.4.5.4 Political/public life 80 2.5 SUMMARY 81 C H A P T E R 3 METHODOLOGY AND DATA: ANALYSING IDEOLOGIES IN PRESS DISCOURSE 83 3.1 INTRODUCTION 83 3.2 CRITICAL DISCOURSE ANALYSIS (CDA) 85 3.2.1 Introduction: development of CDA 85 3.2.2 CDA: general definitions and approaches 86 3.2.3 Defining discourse 88 3.2.4 Functions of discourse and the importance of context 89 3.2.5 Discourse and control 91 3.2.6 Agency 92 3.2.7 CDA as method 93 3.3 CDA AND LANGUAGE IDEOLOGIES 97 3.3.1 Hidden agendas 97 3.3.2 Ideological vocabulary 98 3.3.3 Naturalisation 98 3.3.4 Sites of ideology 99 3.3.5 CDA and hegemony 100 3.3.6 Differences between CDA and Language Ideology 100 3.3.7 CDA: a guiding tool for ideological analysis 101 3.3.8 Metaphor analysis 102 3.4 DATA 105 3.4.1 Rationale 105 3.4.1.1 El País 108 3.4.1.2 ABC 108 3.4.1.3 Readerships 109 3.4.1.4 Periods of study 111 3.4.2 Data collection process and methods 111 3.4.3 Data Categorisation 112 3.5 SUMMARY 114 iii C H A P T E R 4 CONTEXT: LANGUAGE(S) IN SPAIN 116 4.1 INTRODUCTION 116 4.2 SPANISH TODAY 116 4.2.1 Linguistic configuration of Spain 116 4.2.2 Language policy in Spain 120 4.2.3 Spanish in the world 122 4.3 THE REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA 123 4.3.1 Foundations 123 4.3.2 Function 125 4.3.3 Status 128 4.3.4 Publications 133 4.3.4.1 Dictionaries 133 4.3.4.2 Orthography 140 4.3.4.3 Grammar 140 4.3.4.4 Boletín de la RAE/Anejos 144 4.4 OTHER LANGUAGE AUTHORITIES 144 4.4.1 Government and education 145 4.4.2 Instituto Cervantes 147 4.4.3 Media 149 4.4.3.1 Television and film 150 4.4.3.2 Radio 153 4.4.3.3 Internet 154 4.4.3.4 Fundéu 156 4.4.4 Style guides and affordable books 158 4.5 SUMMARY 160 C H A P T E R 5 THE UNITY OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE AND COMMUNITY OF SPANISH-SPEAKERS 163 5.1 INTRODUCTION 163 5.2 UNITY OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE 164 5.2.1 One common, unified language 164 5.2.2 Spanish as a factor of unity 167 5.2.3 Strengths and weaknesses of Spanish 170 5.2.4 The economic value of Spanish 174 5.3 THE COMMUNITY OF SPANISH -SPEAKERS 176 5.4 UNITY AND COMMUNITY IN STANDARDISATION DISCOURSE 182 5.5 SUMMARY 187 C H A P T E R 6 THE ROLE AND AUTHORITY OF THE REAL ACADEMIA ESPAÑOLA AND OTHER GUARDIANS OF SPANISH 189 6.1 INTRODUCTION 189 iv 6.2 THE ROLE OF LANGUAGE GUARDIANS IN STANDARDISATION 190 6.2.1 The Real Academia Española 190 6.2.2 The King of Spain 202 6.2.3 The Instituto Cervantes 204 6.2.4 The Spanish media 205 6.3 THE DISCURSIVE LEGITIMISATION OF ROLE AND AUTHORITY 206 6.3.1 History 207 6.3.2 Authority 209 6.3.3 Agency 211 6.4 SUMMARY 214 C H A P T E R 7 THE SPANISH LANGUAGE IN THE WORLD 216 7.1 INTRODUCTION 216 7.2 THE FRAMING OF DEBATES ABOUT SPANISH IN THE WORLD 217 7.2.1 A language in expansion 217 7.2.2 A language of the future 222 7.3 PLURICENTRIC SPANISH AND THE RAE 226 7.3.1 Norms of pluricentric Spanish 226 7.3.2 El español común 228 7.3.3 Panhispanic Language Policy (PLP) 231 7.4 TO WHOM DOES SPANISH ‘BELONG ’? 234 7.4.1 Spain as a diminished linguistic power? 234 7.4.2 The shifting ‘capitals’ of Spanish 238 7.4.3 Spanish in the Americas 239 7.4.4 ‘La lengua de todos’ 241 7.5 SUMMARY 243 C H A P T E R 8 CONCLUSIONS 2 4 6 8.1 THE IDEOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK OF ‘S TANDARD ’ SPANISH 246 8.2 THE DISCURSIVE CONSTRUCTION OF ‘S TANDARD ’ SPANISH 249 8.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS STUDY 254 8.4 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY 256 8.5 SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER RESEARCH 257 Notes 259 Appendix A: Fairclough’s CDA questions 277 Appendix B: NVivo Data Analysis Categories 279 Primary Data References 281 Bibliography 2 8 7 v DECLARATION OF AUTHORSHIP I, Darren James Paffey, declare that the thesis entitled ‘Language, discourse and ideology: the Real Academia Española and the standardisation of Spanish’ and the work presented in the thesis are both my own, and have been generated by me as the result of my own original research.