Language ideologies and the production of identities: Spanish as a resource for participation in a multilingual marketplace

Abstract

As technological advances, trade initiatives, and the formation of political and corporate alliances contribute to the spread of globalization, language has become not only a marker of national or ethnic identity but also a form of economic and social capital (Heller 1999). Within the United States, this shift is being felt at some of the nation's most prestigious universities as an increasingly pragmatic student body clamors for courses in languages-other-than-English in an effort to accumulate the linguistic resources necessary for participation in a multilingual marketplace. This paper examines how language ideologies might function to construct expertise in Spanish as a resource for the professional advancement of middle-and upper-middle class foreign language learners, while simultaneously casting it as a detriment to the social mobility of heritage language users (i. e., U. S. Latinos). In so doing, it describes how ideologies of Spanish as a foreign language get produced, circulated, and appropriated in the day-to-day workings of a Spanish language program at a prestigious U. S. university to support and foster this asymmetry. Weaving together both diachronic and synchronic approaches to research on language ideologies, it investigates how foreign language learners draw on certain ideologies to construct themselves as competent and legitimate users of Spanish, despite gaps in their linguistic repertoires and limited membership in Spanish-speaking communities of practice.

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