Spanish is spoken as a first language by almost 400 million people in approximately 60 countries, and has been the subject of numerous political processes and debates since it began to spread globally from Iberia in the thirteenth century. A Political History of Spanish brings together a team of experts to analyze the metalinguistic origins of Spanish and evaluate it as a discursively constructed artefact; that is to say, as a language which contains traces of the society in which it is produced, and of the discursive traditions that are often involved and invoked in its creation. This is a comprehensive and provocative new work which takes a fresh look at Spanish from specific political and historical perspectives, combining the traditional chronological organization of linguistic history and spatial categories such as Iberia, Latin America and the US, whilst simultaneously identifying the limits of these organizational principles.

Las contribuciones del presente volumen trilingue (en espanol, frances e ingles) se dedican a explorar las articulaciones entre los campos de la glotopolitica y la linguistica romanica. Se pretende al mismo tiempo renovar la romanistica actual relacionandola con cuestiones de desigualdad social y rescatar sus tradiciones intelectuales que pueden ser interpretadas como constitutivas de la glotopolitica. Objetos de estudio heterogeneos como discursos metalinguisticos academicos, listas de lenguas, glosarios gubernamentales, programas de software, la interaccion en situacion de peticion de asilo, intervenciones en situaciones de plurilinguismo regional, etc. se abordan partiendo de las premisas de la inseparabilidad de lo linguistico y lo politico, la historicidad y la contextualidad.

This book examines the way in which a group of key Spanish and Latin American intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries discussed the concept of the Spanish language. The contributors analyse the ways in which these discussions related to the construction of national identities and the idea of an Hispanic culture. This book will be essential reading for sociolinguists, scholars of the Spanish language, historians of the Hispanic culture, and all those with an interest in the relationship between language and culture.

This book examines the way in which a group of key Spanish and Latin American intellectuals of the nineteenth and twentieth-centuries discussed the concept of the Spanish language. The contributors analyse the ways in which these discussions related to the construction of national identities and the idea of an Hispanic culture.
This book will be essential reading for sociolinguists, scholars of the Spanish language, historians of the Hispanic culture, and all those with an interest in the relationship between language and culture.

Related link: Internet Spanish Linguistics publication
eBook available with sample pages: 0203164865

Spanish is spoken as a first language by almost 400 million people in approximately 60 countries, and has been the subject of numerous political processes and debates since it began to spread globally from Iberia in the thirteenth century. A Political History of Spanish brings together a team of experts to analyze the metalinguistic origins of Spanish and evaluate it as a discursively constructed artefact; that is to say, as a language which contains traces of the society in which it is produced, and of the discursive traditions that are often involved and invoked in its creation. This is a comprehensive and provocative new work which takes a fresh look at Spanish from specific political and historical perspectives, combining the traditional chronological organization of linguistic history and spatial categories such as Iberia, Latin America and the US, whilst simultaneously identifying the limits of these organizational principles.

The objective of the book is to resolve one of the many enigmas posed by the history of Ibero-Romance dialects in general and Spanish in particular - the strange palatalization (unconditioned, sporadic and incomplete) of /s/. Over and above this central concern, the book also pursues a fundamentally theoretical aim inspired by two preoccupations of a metalinguistic nature, the delimitation of historical linguistics and the circumstantial nature of linguistic investigation.

Las cuarenta contribuciones del presente volumen se remontan al Tercer Congreso Latinoamericano de Glotopolitica (Hannover, 27-30 de septiembre de 2017) y abordan una multitud de temas en la interfaz entre la dimension politica de las intervenciones en los lenguajes y la dimension semiotica de los procesos sociales y politicos. El libro se situa en el ambito de la glotopolitica y esta estructurado alrededor de los siguientes ejes tematicos: perspectivas teoricas sobre la dimension social y politica del lenguaje, instituciones e ideologias linguisticas, lenguas minorizadas / multilinguismo y migracion, ensenanza de lenguas e instrumentos linguisticos, politicas linguisticas, discursos politicos y analisis del discurso, medios de comunicacion masiva y medios digitales.