[Linganth] Mexican Spanish & U.S. Latina/o media

[Alexander King]

Interesting to see these posts. When I was an
exchange student to Bogota, many years ago, I
learned that the most correct, best Spanish is
spoken in Colombia, in Bogota, to be exact. Later
when I met another American who had been living
in Bucaramanga (sp?), she informed me that the
'best' Spanish was spoken there. This is an
interesting pattern.

Sociolinguists working in Britain will be quick
to point out that regionalism in British English
is alive and strong, not subject to the
homogenization apparent in America, but the
interesting thing there is that local accents are
devalued vis a vis a 'standard English' which no
one really speaks. Interesting that Spanish
speakers in Mexico and Colombia seem to have the
inverse ideology (pride in their own way of
speaking).

Alex King

At 12:23 -0500 5/8/04, Christie Lopez wrote:
>I agree, the Washington Post article was interesting.  I don't think
>between Telemundo and Univision we're in danger of eliminating the
>intricacies of the spoken Spanish language immediately, though.
>
>Hispanic people identify themselves by their dialects between countries and
>within a country  much more so than those of us in the US.  It gives a
>sense of culture, provides a biographical map, and is a source of pride. 
>
>There has been the long-standing debate as to which Spanish is the most
>correct--that of Spain or Mexico.  Ask any Mexican and they will tell you
>it is theirs of course!  Ask any Spaniard and they will wonder why you are
>asking such an obvious question.
>
>Ms. Davila's book is interesting, but I question its direction.  Within our
>own country television personalities neutralize English accents and
>dialects to be more easily understood.  If we're talking global
>communications for advertising or other media, you want the largest
>possible group to understand what you're talking about.  Segmenting by
>special interest or dialect groups is too costly and just impractical.
>

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