A Political History of Spanish

A comprehensive work which offers a new and provocative approach to Spanish from political and historical perspectives.

This book analyzes metalinguistic constructions of Spanish in specific historical and political contexts. Its structure combines the traditional chronological organization of linguistic history and spatial categories such as Iberia, Latin America and the US, whilst at the same time pointing at the limits of such organizational principles.Spanish is spoken as a first language by almost 400 million people in approximately 60 countries, and has been the subject of numerous political processes and debates since it began to spread globally from Iberia in the thirteenth century. A Political History of Spanish brings together a team of experts to analyze the metalinguistic origins of Spanish and evaluate it as a discursively constructed artefact; that is to say, as a language which contains traces of the society in which it is produced, and of the discursive traditions that are often involved and invoked in its creation. This is a comprehensive and provocative new work which takes a fresh look at Spanish from specific political and historical perspectives, combining the traditional chronological organization of linguistic history and spatial categories such as Iberia, Latin America and the US, whilst simultaneously identifying the limits of these organizational principles.