Language ideologies and the globalization of ‘standard’ Spanish investigates the ideological debates surrounding the standardization of the modern Spanish language, and in particular emphasizes the roles of the Real Academia Española (RAE) and other cultural, though not necessarily linguistic, authorities in the reproduction and reinforcement of these ideologies. Drawing on the theory and tools of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), particularly in his examination of lexical and grammatical choices, Paffey unpacks the hegemonic discourses surrounding the standardization of the Spanish language and their effects on speakers of Spanish. The book's introduction briefly traces the history of the Spanish language from its origins in Vulgar Latin to the post-Franco era, and also offers a short history of the development of Spanish as a world language.

In chapter 1, Paffey outlines some of the aims of his CDA-based approach, noting that he seeks to analyze the intersections of language ideologies with everyday language practice with the goal of ‘demystifying’ (33) language ideology discourses and the processes by which these discourses perpetuate hegemony. The data for Paffey's study comprise a corpus of texts drawn from two prominent Spanish newspapers, El País and ABC, between 1997–2007.

Chapter 2 describes the process of the language standardization engaged in by bodies such as the RAE, which entails choosing a variety to uphold as the standard, minimizing structural variety in its form, and propagating it widely. Here, Paffey notes that the varieties most often upheld as the standard are those spoken by the elite, and the propagation of such varieties results in tangible, far-reaching social and economic consequences for speakers of other varieties, while the choice of standard variety is often unquestioned and assumed to be ‘natural’. As a result, the standard Spanish upheld by the RAE is removed from the actual language practices of speakers; this español común, or ‘common Spanish’, is anonymized and abstract.

Chapters 3, 4, and 5 discuss Spanish as a world language and the strategies employed by the RAE and other authorities justifying their continued advancement of standardization. While Paffey notes that tolerance for linguistic diversity has improved in the post-Franco era, the discourses of the RAE and similar bodies make consistent references to ‘our’ language, or ‘the’ Spanish language, implying the existence of a singular, abstract global Spanish. Additionally, Paffey describes the de facto status of the RAE as primus inter pares among worldwide Spanish language academies, arguing that while the globalization of Spanish is increasingly acknowledged, the conservative, Spain-centric authority of the RAE continues to drive how global Spanish is defined. As a result, the abstract ‘Spanish from nowhere’ is disconnected from the actual language practices of many global speakers, and may be used to exclude certain speakers from the social and economic capital associated with the standard.

Ultimately, Paffey's book provides an interesting case study on the workings of language academies, standardization efforts, and the production and reproduction of discourses of power in Spanish-speaking communities worldwide.