Abstract
In this article, we examine the language surveillance – both self and externally imposed – experienced by Madrid university students of Latin American origin in their encounters with the local population in educational settings. A pattern of language surveillance emerges in the interviews held with these students. It consists of hierarchical observation, normalising judgment and interrogation. These three reported practices are related to the following linguistic and non-linguistic resources that make surveillance possible, namely: (a) indexicality, especially with regard to phonological distinctions that index speakers as “local” vs. “non-local” or “native” vs. “non-native”; (b) the invoking of disciplinary and prescriptive linguistic knowledge, together with the application of a colonial episteme whereby the metropolitan norm prevails, thus denying non-metropolitan speakers their right to language ownership; and, (c) the management of power within interactions. By these means, varieties and speakers of Spanish are hierarchised and those that differ from locals are positioned as subaltern others. Language surveillance is a disciplinary power technique that prompts speakers to adapt to the centripetal force exerted by the reproduction of this knowledge. Finally, the article examines the extent to which this stylistic move to adapt, could be considered an example of muda given that these shifts are situational and relational and attend to the different social demands of the communicative settings where the practice is observed.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the research project, “Linguistic Mudes: an ethnographic approach to new speakers in Europe”, ref. FFI2015-67232-C3-1-P, funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación, and by the project “Superdiversidad lingüística en áreas periurbanas. Análisis escalar de procesos sociolingüísticos y desarrollo. De la conciencia metalingüística en aulas multilingües” [Linguistic superdiversity in peri-urban areas: a scaled analysis of sociolinguistic processes and the evolution of metalinguistic awareness in the multilingual classroom), re. ffi2016-76425-p, funded by: FEDER/Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades – Agencia Estatal de Investigación, and a Santander mobility awarded to the second author. This article has also benefitted from academic exchanges conducted within the ISCH COST action IS1306 “New Speakers in a Multilingual Europe: Opportunities and Challenges”. In addition, the article has gained from regular discussions by the first author during a visiting professorship at the Advanced Research Center (CUNY).
Appendix: Transcription conventions (adapted from Schegloff 2007)
- [
beginning of overlap
- ]
end of overlap
- =
latching
- -
indicates a cut off of the prior word or sound
- ‘underscoring’
indicates emphasis
- ::
indicates pitch rise
- ‘capital letters’
indicates volume
- .
indicates falling intonation
- ?
indicates rising intonation
- ,
indicates continuing intonation
- > <
indicates that the talk between them is rushed
- < >
indicates that the talk between them is slowed
- ₒ
indicates that the talk following it was markedly soft
- ()
indicates that no hearing could be achieved for the talk or item
- (0.3)
numbers in parentheses indicate silence represented in tenths of a second
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