Spanish as World Language in the Field of Media

Spanish as World Language in the Field of Media

There are approximately 400 million people who can speak Spanish by the end of the twentieth century; this makes Spanish the 4th most commonly used language in the world. The first three languages are Mandarin Chinese, English and Hindi. There are 21 countries in which Spanish is the official language and in most of them it is the only official language. Spanish is a language that is spoken not only as a mother tongue but in many places as a significant second language along with being a vehicular language or 'lingua franca'. Although the Spanish language is obviously associated with Spain, the country that it originated from, but majority of the people who speaks this language live in Latin America and as, the population is growing at a steady pace in that area so is the number of Spanish speakers (Stewart, 1999).

In U.S., the language is spreading in a very rapid manner as well. There are also a small number of people who speak this language in Asia, Africa as well as the Middle East. Here, we will be looking at the people who speak Spanish and the language itself as one of the important languages being spoken in the world today (Stewart, 1999).

The number of people who speak a language is only one factor which helps in judging the status that a language holds. There are many other factors as well, such as, the status that the language holds as a co-official, minority or official language, the cultural and economic potential of the countries in which the language holds an official status, the number of people by whom the language is being studied as a second or foreign language, the extent of the areas in which it can be made use of, the efforts being made in promoting the language, the presence of the language in the supranational forums, these are all the aspects that play an important part in defining the status of a language (Stewart, 1999).

Spanish, its use and norms

There are about 22 million people who are presently speaking Spanish in the U.S., from among these 22 million, about 60%, have Mexican origin and live mostly in the south west, Puerto Ricans who form 12% of the people who speak Spanish in U.S. incline to live in north east and New York whereas, Florida is favored by the Cubans who form 4% of the Spanish speaking population in U.S. (Stewart, 1999).

Currently the most quickly growing ethnic community of U.S. is of the Hispanics and it is being estimated that by 2050 their number will rise to 96.5 million (The Guardian, 16.07.98 as cited in Stewart, 1999). This can be very problematic for U.S. as, it has nowhere been mentioned in their legislation that the official language of the Union is English, in this matter they have always trusted the desire of the immigrants to want to speak English in order to get settled in the community more easily and to socialize with the people there (Stewart, 1999).

Now it is being noticed that a lot of friction seems to be taking place between the majority that speaks English and the communities which only speak Spanish. This problem is especially severe in the southern states as, they have a higher concentration of the Hispanic communities. In some of the major cities of the country like Los Angeles and San Antonio approximately one half of the population has a Hispanic background. One tenth of the total population in New York speaks Spanish. It has been since the 1990s that the Republicans have been wanting the English language to get an official status and they have been trying to restrict the use of Spanish language not only outside but also inside the homes and in order to achieve this goal, an 'English only' moment was promoted by them as well. They are especially very unhappy about the amount of budget which is being given to the maintenance programs for the mother tongue. But the Spanish speaking community has been actively opposing these ideas (Stewart, 1999).

It was in 1994 that in the state of Arizona a federal tribunal ruling turned down a state legislation according to which the state was prohibiting the employees to speak Spanish while on official duties. This legislation was turned down on the grounds that the first amendment of the Constitution was being infringed by it. By turning down this legislation the state administrators were able to deal with the Hispanic citizens in their own mother tongue such as, the administrators were able to hear the complaints of the people who were from Hispanic background and not very fluent in English in a better manner. It was in 1995 that a resolution was passed in San Antonio which is the 9th biggest city of the U.S. according to this resolution the city was proclaimed as bilingual. A significant setback was received by the Spanish language in the June of 1998 as the most populated state if U.S. voted for what was being called the Proposition 227. According to this proposition the bilingual education which was being given to the immigrant children for more than 20 years had to be ended. Although the purpose of doing this was said to be to prevent the ghettoization of the Hispanic children and to improve their English but it will be very fascinating to observe the effects of this proposition on the usage of Spanish language in the Hispanic community (Stewart, 1999).

Spanish language as a world language

Spanish language can definitely be called a world language considering not only the number of countries that it is being spoken in all over the world but also how it holds the status of an official language in so many countries and how so many people speak it as a prestige variety or as a first language (Stewart, 1999).

The center of gravity of the Spanish language lies in the Latin America where majority of speakers of the language live. With regards to the numbers of native speakers in Europe it comes after Russian, German, French and English. Even then it should be noted here that in Europe Spain is one of the most quickly developing economies (The Economist 1996:93-100). Spain is probably the most economically sound country as compared to the countries which also have Spanish as an official language. Spanish language is now being developed in such a manner that it can be used in basically all the fields of knowledge and now the users are able to use the Spanish language in the areas like information technology (Clyne, 1995). However, if we look at the Spanish language internationally we will be surprised to see that it is a lot less prominent than French language which has very few speakers as compared to Spanish language. Still the fact that French is an official language in a lot of countries can't be ignored (see Ball 1997:6). The credit for this popularity of the French language goes to a certain extent to France as well which has been promoting their language for a long time. In comparison it can be seen that the promotion of Spanish language is declining in European and international organizations due to the fact that there are economic constraints when it comes to the promotion of this language (Stewart, 1999).

Spanish language in the media as international language in contrast to being a pluricentric language

For a long time the Spanish language media has proven itself to be a very important way of reaching the Iberian or Latin American people in the U.S. The bilingual and English media that communicate with this population group are not the scope of this particular chapter. It is most recently that the new immigrants are making use of the Spanish media in the U.S. In fact, it has been noted that people belonging to other ethnic groups are getting attracted to the Spanish media as they want to improve their Spanish as well and learn more and more about the cultural of this increasing and influential segment of the population. According to the census that was conducted in 1940 the Latino and Hispanic population was at about 1.9 million whereas, by 1980 the number reached 14.6 million which made about 6.4% of the U.S. population and this number further increased to 35.3 million by 2000 which made the Hispanics to be 12.5% of the total U.S. population (Albarran, 2009).

According to the National Hispanic Consumer study which was done by Simmons Market Research Bureau (2003 as cited in Albarran, 2009) from among the Hispanic living in the U.S. 19% speak on the Spanish language, 9% speak only the English language, 17% can speak complete English and Spanish and are bilingual whereas, 55% have very limited proficiency in the English language. This continuous and steady growth of the Latino/Hispanic population can prove to be very troublesome for the U.S. with regards to economics, politics, and society in general. A very significant role is played by the media in all this too (Albarran, 2009).

It has been since the 1980s that the Latino/Hispanic votes have been sought after by the National political parties. With the increase in the growth of Latino/Hispanic voters their potential for establishing a swing vote in the state, local and national elections has increased as well. For this reason a lot of attention is being given to the Hispanic oriented media along with huge amounts of advertising revenues. Politicians have also become very careful about their stands regarding the issues that might change the voting patterns of the Hispanic people like the debate about immigration reform in spring of 2006 which was given a lot of coverage by the U.S. Spanish language media and through which a swing was prompted against some of the Republican candidates in that years' national elections (Albarran, 2009).

It has been since the 1980s that even with steady growth the Hispanic market has gathered changing attention from the major corporations as well as the press and the time was called as the "Decade of the Hispanic." Many of the larger corporations have gotten attracted to the Hispanic market and have started adverting intheir media as well. The main reasons for this attraction are the large sized families, the household spending which is higher-than-average on the consumer products and the attitude of long-term brand loyalty which is shown by the Latinos. The probability of the market growth as well as the possibility of profit which is offered by the Hispanic communities is expected to increase all through the 21st century. But it is also a fact that according to the population sizes of this group the Latino/Hispanic oriented media as always been a step behind. This imbalance has been noted by a lot of experts and scholars and they have observed in their studies that while the Hispanic/Latino spending is welcomed into the U.S. economy the people themselves aren't welcomed into the social or political systems (Albarran, 2009).

The collective place of the U.S. Spanish language media should in the history in a broader perspective before examining each of these media. A very influential role has been played by the business models, investment and content from the other countries when it comes to the development of these media. In the same the Spanish language media of the other countries such as in the Western Hemisphere get influenced by the business practices, investment and content of the U.S. The growth of the U.S. Spanish Language has coincided with the global and hemispheric expansion of media and markets which has in turn been enabled by the technological change, freer trade and economic reform. It has been since the 1980s that the communication technologies have changed to a great extent with the arrival of digitization (Albarran, 2009).

Concept of international Spanish and neutral Spanish

The main reason behind the dominance of the English language is the fact that at first in the nineteenth century it remained the language of British Empire and secondly, because it is the language of the U.S. since the Second World War as well which is the most powerful nation of the world. English language was able to get the status and position above all the languages in the world due to firstly the dominance of Britain in the whole world and later on because of the U.S. Many might see the reason behind all this to be the fact that in this way people are able to better communicate with eachother in a better and effective manner but there are many who also view this to be a type of 'linguistic imperialism', a term which was championed particularly by Robert Phillipson (1992).

Although it is probably right that the French have reacted a lot more strongly that the Spanish at the arrival of English in a lot of the areas where previously it was Spanish dominance. However, there still is quiet some awareness regarding the presence of the English language which has been affecting Spanish. Especially in the media where the new trends spread very quickly through the advanced technological means the domination of the English language can be seen in the new grammatical forms that are being used in the Spanish language. There is a competition between English and Spanish not just in the internal form but in terms of the use as well. Even though there are many organizations in which both the languages are official but it is a known fact that in most of the places English will b preferred as the language for communication. This is the reason that most of the people who go on official international tours are expected to know the English language. It is important for the Latin and Spanish business people to master English language to a certain extent and give paper in English (Mar-Molinero, 2000).

The very famous cultural activities which are also of great importance like the pop music, cinema and sports events which are supposed to go across the boundaries are expected to be in English (Radcliffe, 1999). Even though Spanish language is spoken by huge amounts of people all over the world but when it comes to these kinds of scenarios the Spanish language does take a back step as compared to the English language (Mar-Molinero, 2000).

However, it can still be seen that Spanish is a vital language. The language can still be seen to be spreading (Cooper, 1982) and it can still be said to be benefiting. It is very important for a language to have characteristics like easy accessibility, favorable attitudes, political support and efficient forms of (re)production along with having a demographic base with increasing number in order for it to expand and spread its speakers. It can clearly be seen that there is political support available to the Spanish language. This is true at both the nationals as well as the international level. This is the area where there is a need for the language academics to play their role. The Spanish supports are available to exert a bit of pressure on the international for a in the places where language has become an issue as, in Madrid there is the association of RAE as well as of Latin American language academics who collaborate with the RAE association. As an example of this scenario the campaign in which the attempt made by EU to eliminate the Spanish letter 'n' from the alphabet was resisted. This attempt was made on the grounds that problems were created when it came to the computer usage. A major reason given by the Spanish speakers for their defense against the removal of 'n' was that they felt it to be a symbol of their identity. The 'n' has also been chosen for the Instituto Cervantes' logo (Mar-Molinero, 2000).

Understanding the Spanish Language

It has been seen that with translators of the Spanish language, there is puzzlement with a request that is pretty common. A client is asking them to do a translation for them that comprises of "neutral Spanish." To the translator, they are probably wondering, can it be done? Is there a neutral Spanish? (Cuevas, 2003)

Decades ago, there was a concept that dealt with Spanish in a neutral sense. This was something that was imposed and was promoted so that people weren't using other types of Spanish, referring to parlance or local dialects or slang. For example, Argentina in the 1940s actually had tango dances that were banned because the lyrics had slang versions of Spanish lyrics in them. Again, in the 1980s, when they were under a military rule, neutral Spanish was what was spoken on television and the radio for many reasons. This was done so that they were preventing citizens from being exposed to the wrong Spanish. It was also done to prevent foreign words from being used. Lastly, it was done to prevent issues with translations from English-based programs (Cuevas, 2003).

The decades following this created a calmer attitude in regards to this. The country started to welcome having accents on TV that weren't just based in Argentina so that they could see what was outside of Argentina. People are advocates of using neutral Spanish because it is a good way to make it even across the board and to make text and speech easier to understand (Cuevas, 2003).

There are many variations for Spanish that is spoken. In Argentina, they pronounce the letters s, c, and z the same. However, if you were in Spain, they would distinctly and differently pronounce z and c sounds. It is also common for Argentines to pronounce the sound s as a j sound. The Andalusians have a very strong z that they pronounce and Argentines are going to pronounce the ll just like a y sound. For Paraguayans, they stress everything phonetically. So, these different distinctions in letters are going to sound familiar to the person of that dialect, but not to the Spanish-speaking person of another dialect (Cuevas, 2003).

A person that is a fan of using neutral Spanish would reply to that, "There are a ton of different varieties of the Spanish language, even orally and written, it is different from area to area. But, what we need is to come up with a common language so that we don't have to deal with this linguistic nightmare." (Cuevas, 2003)

The phrase E. plurbisunum is a good description of the success of the Spanish language. It needs to be like this because if was inflexible, it would actually be rejected by the people that speak it. Borges spoke of this decades ago, and talked about adapting the language to the needs so that it was uniform. However, even just the core of this language allows others to speak it no matter where they are (Cuevas, 2003).