Speaking Spanish in the US. Janet M. Fuller

to ensure the unity of Spanish not only within Spain, but also internationally (Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2011; Paffey, 2012; Villa & Del Valle, 2014). Although the RAE collaborates with Latin American academies of Spanish and the international Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (AALE) in the promotion of ‘Pan-Hispanic’ norms that recognize some regional variation, the RAE remains very much at the center of this endeavor and seeks to maintain Spain’s symbolic ownership of Spanish (Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2011). Along with Spanish government-funded institutions like the RAE and the Instituto Cervantes (which promotes the study of Spanish around the world), private business interests and corporations (such as the telecommunications giant Telefónica) have also sought to maintain Spain’s leadership in defining international language norms, highlighting the intertwining of linguistic, political and economic concerns (Mar-Molinero & Paffey, 2011; Villa & Del Valle, 2014; Zentella, 2017). The involvement of these institutions in the definition of language norms and standards also includes the publication of Spanish-as-a-second-language teaching materials, as well as sponsorship and promotion of the Servicio Internacional de Evaluación de la Lengua Española (‘International Spanish Language Evaluation Service’) (see https://siele.org), a proficiency evaluation and certification service.

      One of the most recent Spanish language academies to join the AALE is the non-profit Academia Norteamericana de la Lengua Española (ANLE), founded in 1973 and headquartered in New York. The ANLE’s website (http://www.anle.us, accessed 15 September 2018) defines their mission in part ‘to study, develop and execute the normative rules of the Spanish of the United States of America,’ as well as to establish and promote ‘the criteria of proper and correct usage’ and ‘to ensure that, in its constant adaptation to the particular needs of Spanish speakers,’ the Spanish used in the US ‘does not affect the unity and understanding of the language in the Hispanic world.’ Like the RAE and the policy of pan-Hispanism, the ANLE has been criticized for its privileging of European norms and the subordination of local varieties and practices, especially those that reflect influence from English (Lynch & Potowski, 2014; Zentella, 2017).

      While the standard language ideology disparages the language varieties associated with disfavored groups (such as those with less education or lower socio-economic status, or who belong to ethnoracial minorities), this rejection of social variation sometimes co-exists with an acceptance of geographic variation. For example, acceptance of geographic variation is reflected in descriptions of Spanish as a pluricentric language. Pluricentrism means that instead of a single, international standard, each ‘Spanish-speaking’ country has its own standard variety (Lope Blanch, 1986, 2001). However, this recognition of multiple standard varieties does not challenge the disparagement of ‘non-standard’ varieties. Indeed, while pluricentrism implies equality among different geographic varieties, it reproduces the hierarchies among social varieties (Leeman, 2012b). This is exemplified in the following quote from linguist Lope Blanch:

      Es evidente que en cada país hispanohablante existe una norma lingüística ejemplar, paradigmática, a la que los habitantes de cada nación tratan de aproximarse cuando de hablar bien se trata. Suele ella ser la norma culta de la ciudad capital: la madrileña para España, la bogotana para Colombia, la limeña para el Perú, etc. (Lope Blanch, 2001: n.p.)

      It is clear that in ever Spanish-speaking country there is a paradigmatic, exemplar linguistic norm that the inhabitants of each nation try to approximate when their trying to speak well. It is usually the educated norm of the capital city: Madrid’s for Spain, Bogota’s for Colombia, Lima’s for Peru, etc. (Our translation)

      Here, the description of Spanish as pluricentric goes hand in hand with reproduction of the standard language ideology and the naturalizing of the privileging of the educated elite in the definition of standard varieties.

      The notion that each ‘Spanish-speaking country’ has its own standard is consistent with the existence of a language academy in each one, and it seems to suggest equal status for all of them. However, this is not always the case. As we discussed above, the RAE exerts significant influence in shaping the norms of the member academies of the AALE. Moreover, the standard language ideology and the associated belief in linguistic ‘purity’ contribute to ideas about the relative ‘quality’, ‘correctness’ and/or ‘value’ of different national varieties of Spanish. Sometimes, these linguist hierarchies are based on racist understandings about the superiority of language varieties spoken in countries perceived to have populations with less African and Indigenous ancestry (Alfaraz, 2002, 2014; Niño-Murcia, 2001; Valdés et al., 2003). The relative wealth of different nations and the socio-economic status of the speakers can also shape attitudes toward different national varieties (Carter & Callesano, 2018). Linguistic purism also plays a role, such as in the longstanding subordination of Puerto Rican Spanish to the supposedly superior varieties spoken in Spain, as well as in the ANLE’s denigration of words and expressions typically used by Spanish-speakers in the US (Zentella, 1997a, 2017). The ideological intertwining of ethnonational identity, socio-economic status, education and linguistic authority, as well as resistance to linguistic subordination, are evident in the following statement by the elderly matriarch of a family in rural Michigan: