HCIAS Blogcast: Andrew Lynch on the Postmodern Paradox of Spanish in the U.S.

Welcome back to the HCIAS Blogcast! This is a series of posts on the HCIAS blog, we summarize some of the key points from our most recent podcast episode. This week, we report on a conversation between Dr. Andrew Lynch, Professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at the University of Miami, and HCIAS Publications editor Dr. Héctor Álvarez Mella about the postmodern paradox of Spanish in the United States. Drawing on his extensive research into sociolinguistics and cultural studies, Dr. Lynch illustrates how a wide range of factors, including neo-liberal market based ideologies, media representations, and migratory flows have shaped the complex and sometimes contradictory attitudes and perceptions toward Spanish in the U.S.

The episode begins with a discussion of the relationship between postmodernity and Spanish in the U.S. Dr. Lynch highlights the importance of three factors for understanding the postmodern character of contemporary U.S. Spanish. The first is the neoliberal turn, which he dates back to the 1980s and the administration of President Ronald Reagan. This shift towards understanding the world in terms of markets and marketplaces as well, as the increased transnational flows of goods and people, led to recognition of the economic value that Spanish held as a means of appealing to Spanish-speaking markets. Dr. Lynch argues this represents a clear departure from viewing Spanish as an identity feature of certain ethnic groups, toward seeing it as a commodity. A second factor is the role of the mass media and the mediatization of Spanish, marked by increased Spanish language programming and the visibility of the Hispanic market in commercials. The final piece of the puzzle is the exponential growth in immigration to the U.S. from Latin America. This is also related back to neoliberal economics, as the migration was in many cases driven by the economic and political crises which resulted from the imposition of this doctrine in Latin America.

Dr. Andrew Lynch

In addition to its postmodern features, Dr. Lynch asserts that there exists a kind of paradox of Spanish in the U.S., principally related to language attitudes and perceptions. There are a number of competing discourses of Spanish in the U.S., however, one of the most prominent is rooted in the idea that multilingualism represents some kind of the threat to the socio-political and cultural cohesion of the nation. Under this ideology, Spanish is conceived of as a “foreign language” with no place in U.S. public life. Although at the national level the U.S. has no official language, many states began to implement official language statutes in the 80s, partially as a response to the increased social prominence of Spanish and Spanish speakers. Florida was among the first “English Only” states in 1988. This discourse, obviously, clashes with the previously mentioned conception of Spanish as a bridge to the valuable and rapidly expanding Latino market. In his empirical work, Dr. Lynch has explored how these discordant ideologies manifest in the language attitudes of young Latinos in Miami, who came of age after the neoliberal revolution. He has found that while Spanish speakers generally value Spanish both as part of their cultural identity and as a potential asset on the job market, there is nevertheless a widely evidenced generational shift toward English dominance at the expense of Spanish competency over time.

The Spanish language competency of members of the so called ‘third generation’ of Latinos in the U.S. (that is, the grandchildren of immigrants to the country) varies widely depending on each individual’s life experience and attitudes. In many cases a kind of passive bilingualism is observed, where an individual is perfectly capable of understanding Spanish, but for a potential variety of reasons, is reluctant to speak it leading to a pattern of intergenerational “asymmetrical interaction” with parents speaking in Spanish and the children replying in English. In many cases, however, one also finds 3rd generation Latinos who remain highly fluent in Spanish, albeit with a greater level of transference from English than is commonly seen in previous generations. Dr Lynch notes that higher levels of language maintenance are somewhat more common in Miami and close to the U.S.-Mexico border.

In the final part of the podcast, Dr. Lynch emphasizes the important role that mass media, encompassing not just traditional media, but also the internet and social media, plays for Spanish in the U.S. We live in an increasingly mediatized society and media representation is key for shaping popular conceptions of and attitudes toward of every aspect of our world, including languages. The Spanish language networks Univision and Telemundo, multi-billion dollar companies based in Miami, whose products are consumed across the world, have done a great deal to legitimize the idea of the U.S. as a Spanish-speaking country. Another factor which Dr. Lynch points to as important is the presence of Spanish in the U.S.’s linguistic landscape, with bilingual signage beginning to become noticeable across the country in the 1980s and 1990s. While this is certainly driven by economic factors, he argues this kind of modest, everyday representation can be vitally important in shaping language attitudes as well.

This HCIAS Blogcast has been just a short recap of a wide-ranging and thought-provoking discussion. If you would like to learn more about our guest and her work, you can listen to the whole episode here.