View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by D-Scholarship@Pitt WHAT DID THEY SAY IN THE HALL OF THE DEAD? LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE CERRO MARAVILLA HEARINGS by Germán Negrón Rivera B.A. University of Puerto Rico, 1988 M.A. University of Puerto Rico, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2010 ii UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Germán Negrón Rivera It was defended on April 16, 2010 and approved by Susan Berk-Seligson, Associate Professor, Spanish and Portuguese Department, Vanderbilt University Juan Duchesne Winter, Professor, Department of Hispanic Languages and Literatures Barbara Johnstone, Professor, English Department, Carnegie Mellon University Dissertation Advisor: Scott Kiesling, Associate Professor, Department of Linguistics ii Copyright © by Germán Negrón Rivera 2010 iii WHAT DID THEY SAY IN THE HALL OF THE DEAD? LANGUAGE AND IDENTITY IN THE CERRO MARAVILLA HEARINGS Germán Negrón Rivera, Ph.D. University of Pittsburgh, 2010 Identity has become a major interest for researchers in the areas of linguistic anthropology and sociolinguistics. Recent understandings of identity emphasize its malleability and fluidity. This conceptualization of identities as malleable comes from the realization that speakers relate strategically to propositions and their interlocutors in order to achieve their communicative goals. This study is an exploration of the (co-)construction of identities in an institutional context, specifically in the Cerro Maravilla hearings. I examine the interactions between the Senate‘s main investigator, Héctor Rivera Cruz, and five witnesses in order to explore how identities were created and how speakers managed the interactions. In chapter 2, I discuss the theoretical framework and the literature. The concepts of identity, linguistic ideologies, power, discourses, indexicalities, and stances are discussed. Chapter 3 is a literature review of studies concerned with language in the legal context, particularly in trials. In chapter 4, I provide a historical background to contextualize the Cerro Maravilla events and the Senate hearings. The next chapter is the methodology. In Chapter 6, I present the analyses of the interactions between Rivera Cruz and five witnesses. In chapter 7, I discuss the findings. Chapter 8 is the conclusion. The present study supports the notion that power is better understood as emergent in interactions, even when interactional resources are unequally available to speakers. However, it iv is not independent of discourses that assign value to ways of speaking and ways of interacting. I claim that speakers combine stances in creative and unexpected ways, constructing memorable identities. The overarching question that motivated this study was: Why did people talk about Rivera Cruz‘s performance and way of speaking? I argue that the answer lies in his creative stance taking through which he was able to provoke a clash of linguistic ideologies in an unexpected and unconventional way. I argue that Rivera Cruz‘s performance attests to the creativity and the immense possibilities that individuals have for creating identities, while this individuality is still connected with discourses that exist in the broad society. v TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS ........................................................................................................... VI ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ........................................................................................................ XII INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 FRAMEWORK .......................................................................................................... 11 2.1 IDENTITY.......................................................................................................... 13 The Public and the Personal: Malleability and Continuity in Identity Creation.. .................................................................................................... 29 2.2 INDEXICALITIES ............................................................................................ 33 Direct and Indirect Indexicality ............................................................... 36 Indexical Orders and Interior and Exterior Indexical Meanings ......... 38 Indexical Presupposition and Indexical Entailment ............................... 43 Problem with the Distinction between Indexical Presupposition and Entailment .................................................................................................. 47 2.3 DISCOURSE AND POWER ............................................................................ 49 Foucault and the Elusiveness of Power .................................................... 49 The Uncomfortable Relationship between Agency and Social Structures.................................................................................................... 54 The Limitations in the Search of Power .................................................. 56 vi 2.4 LINGUISTIC IDEOLOGIES ........................................................................... 58 Definitions ................................................................................................... 58 Mediating between Linguistic Forms and Social Meanings .................. 59 Ideologies and Interest ............................................................................... 62 Stances ......................................................................................................... 65 Indexical Processes in Stance Taking ....................................................... 65 Making Sense of Stances ........................................................................... 72 Collective memory ............................................................................... 75 LANGUAGE IN THE LEGAL CONTEXT ............................................................ 78 3.1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................. 78 3.2 LANGUAGE IN THE LEGAL CONTEXT AND ITS FORM AND FUNCTION ......................................................................................................... 80 3.3 THE BOUNTY OF PRE-ALLOCATION....................................................... 83 3.4 MANIPULATION OF THE LINGUISTIC RESOURCES AND THE INTERACTION WITH CULTURAL IDEOLOGIES.................................... 87 3.5 CODA ................................................................................................................ 112 Four Implications for this Study of the Literature Reviewed.............. 114 A Note on the Cerro Maravilla Hearings .............................................. 115 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND ............................................................................ 116 4.1 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 116 4.2 BEFORE THE INVASION ............................................................................ 117 4.3 THE FIRST THREE DECADES UNDER AMERICAN FLAG ................ 119 4.4 THE TURBULENT DECADE OF THE 1930’S........................................... 123 vii 4.5 THE 1940’S: THE RISE OF THE POPULAR DEMOCRATIC PARTY ............................................................................................................... 128 4.6 THE RETURN OF THE NATIONALIST PARTY AND THE CONSTITUTION ............................................................................................. 131 4.7 THE RISE OF THE PRO-STATEHOOD MOVEMENT AND THE COLD WAR ................................................................................................................... 137 4.8 1978: THE YEAR OF THE KILLINGS AT CERRO MARAVILLA ....... 141 4.9 THE CERRO MARAVILLA CASE .............................................................. 146 The Official Version ................................................................................. 146 The Department of Justice Investigations ............................................. 149 The Hearings Findings ............................................................................ 152 4.10 POLITICAL CLIMATE DURING THE HEARINGS ................................ 156 4.11 THE SENATE HEARINGS: STATED PURPOSE AND ORGANIZATION… ........................................................................................ 160 METHODOLOGY ................................................................................................... 163 5.1 PARTICIPANTS ............................................................................................. 163 Descriptions of the Witnesses .................................................................. 164 Héctor Rivera Cruz ........................................................................... 164 Alejandro González Malavé ............................................................. 170 Julio Ortiz Molina ............................................................................. 177 Osvaldo Villanueva ........................................................................... 181 Rafael Torres Marrero ..................................................................... 184 Roberto Torres González ................................................................