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

[Christie Lopez]

I'm stumped.  Everyone I've ever spoken to from Spain is insistent that theirs is the most correct.  Of the countries in South and even Central America, perhaps conversational Spanish in Colombia is the easiest to understand as it is more fluid and has less idiosyncrasies than the others.  I think Mexico's version is equally enjoyable though.

However, which version is "correct" is actually irrelevant.  Who "gets the gold" on TV has more to do with money and political maneuvering than anything else.

----- Original Message -----
From: Kristine Fitch
To: linganth at cc.rochester.edu
Sent: 8/5/2004 5:08:18 PM
Subject: RE: [Linganth] Mexican Spanish & U.S. Latina/o media


Beyond regional pride, I have heard both Cubans and Spaniards describe Colombian Spanish as the "most correct," comparing it to US national news - speak.  I found that far more curious than everyone claiming their own as superior.

Kristine Fitch

At 12:55 PM 8/5/2004, Alexander King wrote:

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.


--
_________________________
University of Aberdeen  http://www.abdn.ac.uk/anthropology
            Koryak Net  http://www.koryaks.net
                 Soyuz  http://www.abdn.ac.uk/soyuz
tel:+44(1224)27 2732
fax:+44(1224)27 2552
Kristine L. Fitch, Ph.D
Associate Professor
Communication Studies, BCSB 105
University of Iowa
Iowa City, IA  52242-1498
http://www.uiowa.edu/~commstud/faculty

Co-chair, IRB 02 (Social and Behavioral Sciences)
http://research.uiowa.edu/hso
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://listserv.linguistlist.org/pipermail/linganth/attachments/20040806/b238cc02/attachment.htm>