Introduction The Politics of Language from Multiple Perspectives: Latinidad and Indigenidad

The field of politics of language intersects with language policy and planning, language of politics, language politics, language revitalization, linguistic rights, language laws, and language regimes.¹ This means that politics of language cannot be completely separated from the above-mentioned fields, since they are interconnected in various ways. In addition, it is fundamental to delve into the notion of politics of language not only from disciplinary and multidisciplinary angles, but also from interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary perspectives.

The politics of language takes place in a mosaic of contexts constituted by real and virtual communities of speakers, and in diverse communicative events and discursive practices. It can be grounded in any number of disciplines and fields—including sociology, political theory, political science, history, linguistics, sociolinguistics, identity politics, gender politics, sociology of language, literature, critical discourse analysis, the semiotics, pragmatics and semantics of political discourses, political economy, linguistic anthropology, philosophy, raciolinguistics, translingualism, folklore, communication and media studies (print and digital), language education, literacy studies—as well as in a wide range of creative works and semi-otic resources, such as in iconicity and imagery. Methodologically speaking, the politics of language is studied qualitatively and quantitatively, though the dominant research paradigm is the qualitative approach.

Political speeches and political discourses—with both a capital D and a small d (Gee, 2012)—intersect with discourses that are linguistic, cultural, gender, power, identity, ideological, scientific, or economic in nature. Orality, translinguality, interdiscursivity, transdiscursivity, intertextuality, and transtextuality are considered cornerstones for understanding and defining the politics of language from micro and macro dimensions, and from multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary perspectives.

Languages in the United States and Latin America

The United States is a multilingual, pluricultural, and multiethnic country where, without a doubt, English is the dominant and the only de facto official language. To a certain extent, Spanish is another commonly spoken language. According to the United States Census Bureau (2016), the United States’ Hispanic population numbers 56.6 million, or 17.6% of the total population, thus constituting the country’s “largest ethnic or racial minority.” It is estimated that by 2050 there will be 138 million Spanish speakers in the United States, “making it the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on Earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.” It is obvious, then, that the presence of Spanish in the United States is solid, since persons of Hispanic origin make up the largest minority group. In addition to Spanish, Indigenous languages and their many linguistic hybrid forms are present and robust in the United States and in Latin America:

Recent U.S. Census data place the number of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Native Hawaiians at approximately 6.4 million, or 2.1 percent of the total population (Hixson, Hepler, & Kim, 2012; Norris, Vines, & Hoeffel, 2012). The U.S. Census also reports 169 Native American languages spoken by 370,000 people (Siebens & Julian, 2011). … Although smaller in overall numbers, Native Americans reside in every U.S. state and territory, representing more than 560 federally recognized tribes, 619 reservations and Alaska Native villages, and 62 Native Hawaiian homelands. In the USA, the Indigenous language situation is characterized by diverse sociolinguistic ecologies and growing threats to that diversity reflected in twin movements to make English the nation’s official language and to circumscribe the teaching of Indigenous and other minoritized languages in school.

Population estimates for Latin America place the number of Indigenous peoples at 40 to 50 million or 10 percent of the population (King, 2008; Lopez & Sichra, 2008). … The intermingling of Native Americans, enslaved Africans, and Europeans produced other varieties such as Carib Pidgin-Arawak in the Caribbean and Garifuna in Central America. Latin America encompasses 20 nation-states, nine dependencies, and a population of 568 million spread out across South, Central, and parts of North America (Garcia et al., 2010, pp. 353–354). With the exception of Uruguay and some Caribbean polities whose original peoples were decimated by colonization, significant numbers of Indigenous peoples reside in every Latin American country (King, 2008; Lopez & Sichra, 2008).

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