Date/Time: 27 April 2017, 16:00 - 17:00

Venue: Research Beehive 2.20, Old Library Building

The School of Modern Languages and CLACS welcome Carlos Sánchez Avendaño from the Department of Linguistics, University of Costa Rica for a Research seminar. All welcome, no need to register!

Abstract

Costa Rica can be characterized as a multilingual country in which language diversity has just begun to be valued recently and in an ambiguous way. In this lecture, current language diversity in Costa Rica will be first introduced in order to then approach language ideologies concerning this diversity.

In the present, five “indigenous” languages are still spoken, in a complex continuum of vitality, and other four have a few speakers or none at all. In addition, there is an English-based creole and an unknown number of varieties of the Costa Rica sign language. Spanish is the national language and the one which is replacing all the others, except for the new Costa Rican sign language.

Against this background, language ideologies will be traced historically as well as studied in their present form. Basically, it is possible to find a historical language ideology concerning the consideration of Spanish as the by-default language in national communication, and for this reason as the language that every inhabitant should know.

Nowadays, however, the patrimonialization of indigenous languages (making these languages national ‘heritage’) is taking place, so it is believed that these languages should be “preserved”, “saved” and promoted in a worldwide context of appreciation of cultural and language diversity.

Despite this, speaking a language other than Spanish and/or an international prestigious language (English mainly) is also viewed as a “thing of the past”, a romantic luxury.

Unfortunately, even harassment due to cultural, phenotypical and language differences is still widespread. All these contradictions will be examined.