Where is World Language Education in Hispanic Linguistics?

• In Event: Where in the World are World Languages?

Abstract

Situated as a language-focused subdiscipline of Linguistics, much of the research and work of Hispanic Linguistics (HL) has been housed within Spanish and Modern Foreign (World) Languages (WLs) Departments. Shaped by a near wholesale adoption of positivist frameworks in the overarching field of linguistics in the United States (Clemons 2024, Licata; 2021), HLs as a discipline has minimal engagement with its pedagogical and curricular implications outside frames of first and second language acquisition. In addition, an overreliance on descriptive models for research on the Spanish language have impacted the field’s ability to critically engage language learning in WL classroom contexts. A positivist model of research within the field insists on defining the objective, which ultimately upholds colonial formations of power (Reagan 2004; Kubota 2012; Flores and Rosa 2015) and suggests that scientific linguistics can exist in some sort of value-neutral state.


HL has failed to enter realms of WL education in ways that could be mutually beneficial. While many researchers tackle issues of first and second language acquisition (Geeslin, 2013; Montrul, 2004 ), it is often done in abstraction from the bodies who are producing and perceiving the language (see critiques of Montrul’s theory of incomplete acquisition cf. Otheguy, 2019 ). As a result, critical engagement with language learning and learners have effectively been left out of the discussion. Consequently, much of the work in the field has been organized in ways that reproduce the erasures of historically oppressed users of languages that either function as colonial tools and/or have been studied through colonial projects of power formation. Nonetheless, the increased focus on bi- and multilingual studies through sociocultural lenses within the field of HL has the potential to broaden the ontological and epistemological trajectory of the field (Train, 2007).


In my commentary, I will first discuss my own development as a Hispanic linguist, centering moments where my interdisciplinary focus on pedagogical and curricular solutions for Black diasporic students of Spanish and Afro-descended users of Spanish has been challenged, misplaced, or devalued. I will note the ways that a lack of space for engagement with WL education within HLs as a discipline results from the same colonial frames that allow for the marginalization and stigmatization of certain Spanish languagers. Through this discussion, I will also review the colonial frames by which institutional policies and practices have perpetuated the erasure and marginalization of Black and Indigenous epistemologies and methodologies within the field (Mudimbe, 1941; wa’ Thiongo, 1986; Toliver, 2021; Carr, 2011; Ndhlovu & Makalela, 2021). Moreover, my commentary will address the near absence of teacher preparation in Hispanic Linguistics programs, despite the fact that many (if not all) of those who pursue careers in the field will function as language teachers in world language education contexts, be they in institutions of higher education or K-12 contexts. Lastly, I will discuss potential strategies for creating space for applied research in WL education within the discipline of HL as a way to create solidarities and interdisciplinary models for the training of future scholars and practitioners. [500 words]

Author

• Aris M. Clemons, University of Tennessee