Loreto Spanish in Leticia: language ideologies and racializationat the border
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15381/lengsoc.v23i1.27345Keywords:
language ideologies, racialization, Colombia-Brazil-Peru border, Loreto Spanish, LeticiaAbstract
Identity negotiation, linguistic practices, and ways of conceiving communicative resources in border areas such as the one shared by Peru, Brazil, and Colombia in the Amazon depend to a large extent on sociocultural differences organized by long and conflictive processes of colonization, borderization and nationalization. On this premise, this article focuses on the ideological construction of sociolinguistic differences, particularly on the construction of “Loreto Spanish” (from the province of Loreto, Peru) by Colombian inhabitants of the border city of Leticia (Colombia). Based on a corpus of sociolinguistic-ethnographic data collected in 2018 and 2020, I analyze discursive fragments extracted from semi-structured interviews conducted in this locality, showing how the perception of Loreto Spanish is part of an ideological contrast between social and linguistic categories, finding expression in local discourses that reproduce negative stereotypes and some forms of linguistic parody, thereby driving the racialization and marginalization of the Amazonian Peruvian population. These findings allow us to highlight the role of language in the processes of racialization, as well as to connect the linguistic-ideological construction of ethnoracial identities with the persistence of colonial logics and political and economic interests linked to the nationalization project of the States that converge in this border area.
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