Introducción a la Sociolíngüística Hispánica is a textbook on sociolinguistics that discusses linguistic variation in the Spanish language and how this variation is perceived by society. This innovative textbook, written in an easy-to-read Spanish, incorporates cultural components like popular music in order to explain linguistic processes, and covers the most important topics that the Spanish student, linguist, or researcher requires in order to understand Spanish as it is spoken in society, and as a cultural manifestation of ideological and sociological perceptions. Díaz-Campos highlights the different sociological aspects that shape language as well as their significance in society and in education, and reinforces the learning of these concepts through practice exercises at the end of each chapter. In short, this work on sociolinguistics facilitates the understanding of Spanish from a linguistic and a social perspective.
In Chapter 1, “Fundamental Aspects to Understand the Field of Sociolinguistics” Díaz-Campos focuses on how the way people speak reveals much of their identity. He explains the tasks a sociolinguist undertakes, which include collecting, codifying and analyzing linguistic data. These tasks are shown to facilitate the exemplification of how language is used, and the demonstration of how its use depends on factors such as socioeconomic status, age, gender, ethnicity and education. He also presents the tools used in such tasks and explains how sociolinguists select the focal speech communities they study. Díaz-Campos then discusses the concepts of language variation and linguistic change, examining their linguistic and extralinguistic causes.
Chapter 2, “Language, Age, Gender, and Socioeconomic Status”, discusses important social factors that generate language variation. Change and variation are correlated with certain age groups. An example discussed is the distinction in prestige between the phonemes /s/ and /θ/ when produced by young Spanish speakers from southern Spain. Díaz-Campos also notes that gender affects speech style, with men favouring a more vernacular style and women tending to be more conservative. He emphasizes that the new roles that men and women are adopting in modern society present challenges for sociolinguists studying language variation due to gender. The effects of socioeconomic status are illustrated through well-explained examples of how the socioeconomic position of the speaker may be related to language prestige and power.
Chapters 3 and 4, “The Study of Sociophonological Variation” and “Sociophonological Variation in the Spanish-Speaking world”, focus on accent variation from a linguistic and sociolinguistic perspective. Díaz-Campos describes some of the social and stylistic causes of pronunciation differences in Spanish and discusses how variation in pronunciation can reveal a speaker's gender, age, socioeconomic status, or ethnicity. He also demonstrates how many of the phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical properties of Spanish varieties can be shown through popular songs. In Chapter 4, a comprehensive description of variation in pronunciation in both Spain and Latin America is presented, stressing that these variations are linked to the speaker's individual as well as social identity.
In Chapters 5 and 6, “Morphosyntactic Variation” and “Morphosyntactic Variation and Social Meaning in The Spanish-Speaking World”, Díaz-Campos explains some of the linguistic and extralinguistic motivations for speakers to use certain morphosyntactic variants and refers to some of the geographical, social and individual contexts in which these variants are manifest. Morphosyntactic variation is exemplified through a discussion of different grammatical constructions including the preference for the present perfect (Spain) or the preterite (Latin America) when referring to a completed past action, or the formal vs. informal status of tú and usted (clarifying some misconceptions that are sometimes transmitted in textbooks or in the foreign language class). In short, this section illustrates, from a sociolinguistic perspective, the factors that influence the use of varied morphosyntactic forms in the different varieties of Spanish.
Chapter 7, “Languages in Contact”, discusses contact situations where Spanish is the language of either the majority or the minority. The author examines the influence exerted on Spanish by the indigenous languages of Latin America and African languages brought by slaves in colonial times. He also examines the Spanish influence on Palenquero, a Spanish-based Creole spoken on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, highlighting speakers’ use of code-switching. Also addressed is the phenomenon of bilingualism in several Latin American areas and some factors that influence its maintenance or disappearance. In short, this chapter helps the reader understand bilingualism or multilingualism as well as concepts associated with language change and variation in the context of Spanish America. It describes the history of bilingualism in this area and analyses the social factors that favour or impede the attainment of multiple languages.
In Chapter 8, “Bilingualism and Spanish in the USA”, Díaz-Campos discusses the linguistic, sociological and administrative consequences of the presence of the vast number of Spanish speakers in several metropolitan areas in the United States. The author also reviews the loyalty to Spanish of second and third generation Hispanic Americans, and links it to the topics of identity and cultural assimilation. The functional processes of simplification and regularization in the language, as well as the emergence of Spanglish are discussed, as are the reactions to them in academia and the general population.
Chapter 9, “Spanish as a Heritage Language”, focuses on Spanish heritage speakers, their linguistic ability, and their acquisition needs. Díaz-Campos writes about linguistic ideology and the role that Spanish has had in the history and development of the United States. He examines the perceptions people have had of this language and its speakers, and how these perceptions influence language attainment in heritage speakers. Díaz-Campos also addresses the role of public education and government in language policy and planning and the effects of such policies on Spanish heritage speakers. He emphasizes different factors that affect the loss of Spanish by heritage speakers, which include the regulations establishing English as the official language in many states. In light of this situation, Díaz-Campos calls for the need to develop programs that reinforce not only the linguistic abilities of heritage speakers, but also the cultural and historical value of Spanish in the US.
Chapter 10, “Attitudes and Linguistic Identity”, examines how Spanish speakers react to certain pronunciations, grammatical structures or vocabulary found in different Spanish varieties, as well as comparing the different available methods to study speaker attitudes. Díaz-Campos discusses direct methods such as questionnaires, surveys, and interviews as well as indirect methods such as the matched-guise technique. Finally, he examines the use of Mock Spanish by English monolinguals as a way of exteriorizing their perception of Hispanics and their language and culture. This chapter presents language as ideologically charged, and revealing of our vision of the social and cultural events in which we participate. This linguistic ideology, according to Díaz-Campos, is an instrument of social and political control.
Chapter 11, “Language and Law”, reveals several implications of the use of legal language. Díaz-Campos describes the concept of forensic linguistics and the tasks undertaken by practitioners of this discipline. He points out how forensic linguists investigate the linguistic evidence presented in a legal case using concepts from, for example, articulatory and acoustic phonetics. Even though Spanish is often used in the American judicial system, there are still serious issues of concern in this area. One issue is the need to have well-prepared interpreters in the legal system able to translate what is being said without changing its meaning, and thereby potentially affecting the verdict of a legal case. Another issue is the recontextualization of translated documents that do not reflect the content of an original oral text. In this chapter, Díaz-Campos focuses attention on the fact that in the legal system language becomes evidence, and consequently, it must be used and analysed carefully and objectively.
In conclusion, throughout this text, Díaz-Campos shows that language is not just an abstract system but a cultural manifestation by which identity and social values are revealed. Díaz-Campos discusses the linguistic and extralinguistic aspects that bring about language variation in Spanish and their consequences in society. One small area in which the book could be improved would be in having more equal coverage of the Iberian and American varieties of Spanish. However, this book will be truly appreciated by linguists and Spanish cultural studies scholars, and would be an invaluable resource for a Spanish Sociolinguistics class. Students of Spanish as a foreign language will also benefit greatly from this work, as it provides tools to better understand the concepts presented in each of the chapters through glossaries and practice activities. The activities, full of authentic language examples, evaluate and reinforce the understanding of the concepts presented and also serve as a way for the readers to have direct encounters with Hispanic language and culture.
