Spring 2024
Distinguished Faculty Lecture
Language as a Political Tool: Spain and the U.S. Compared
presented by
Vicente Lledó-Guillem, PhD
Full Professor of Spanish
Department of Romance Languages and Literatures
School of Humanities, Fine and Performing Arts
Hofstra College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
1-2:15 p.m.
Guthart Cultural Center Theater, First Floor, Axinn Library
Spanish is, after Mandarin, the second language in the world with regards to the number of native speakers. Moreover, Spanish is the official language of 20 countries and has an important presence in other nation states where it is not official, such as, for example, the United States. Spanish is the only official language in all the regions of Spain, although other languages such as Basque, Catalan, Galician, and Occitan are co-official with Spanish in their respective areas inside Spain. This lecture focuses on the ideological and political tensions that arose after the municipal elections that took place in the Valencian Region of Spain on May 28, 2023. While in the Valencian Region there are two official languages: Spanish and Catalan, the lecture argues that the outcome of these elections with a coalition government between the Spanish conservative party, PP, and the far-right group Vox, entails the support of Spanish monolingualism, i.e., the gradual elimination of the Catalan language in the Region of Valencia. Professor Lledó-Guillem claims that three ideological and political arguments supporting Spanish as the only legitimate language in Spain have also been used to promote English as the only acceptable language in the United States: first, the supposed organic link between language and nation (cultural nationalism); second, the continuity of language throughout history; and, finally, the idea that some languages are by nature more global than others (sociolinguistic naturalism). The comparison is pertinent as the U.S. is, after Mexico, the second country in the world regarding the number of Spanish speakers.
Dr. Vicente Lledó-Guillem is Full Professor of Spanish at Hofstra University. His main areas of research are the history of Spanish and Catalan languages and literatures from a political, ideological, and cultural point of view. Professor Lledó-Guillem pays particular attention to how literature and language relate to identity, nation, and power in the past and in the present, especially in the Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period. Between November 2020 and January 2021, Professor Lledó-Guillem was awarded the Marià Villangómez Visiting Professorship for Catalan Studies at Leipzig University (Universität Leipzig) (Germany) in collaboration with the Institut Ramon Llull, which supports the use and knowledge of the Catalan language abroad.
Apart from publishing more than 30 journal articles and book chapters in prestigious academic journals and academic presses, Professor Lledó-Guillem is the author of four book monographs in three languages (English, Spanish, and Catalan): Literatura o imperio: La construcción de las lenguas castellana y catalana en la España renacentista (Juan de la Cuesta, 2008); The Making of Catalan Linguistic Identity in Medieval and Early Modern Times (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018); La formación de la identidad lingüística catalana (siglos XIII-XVII) (Marcial Pons, 2019), and Ideologies lingüístiques a la Comunitat Valenciana. Un estudi introductori [Language Ideologies in the Valencian Region: An Introductory Study] (Universitat de València, 2023). This last book monograph, recently published in Catalan, constitutes the basis of Professor Lledó-Guillem’s lecture.
About the Distinguished Faculty Lecture
In 1981, the University inaugurated the annual Hofstra University Distinguished Faculty Lecture Series. The lecture is typically scheduled midsemester during Common Hour.
All full-time Hofstra faculty members who have not received the award in the four years prior to their application are eligible to apply. Note that while a lecture is the standard format, fine arts faculty may opt to have a performance or exhibit followed by a discussion. The lecture is the fruit of original thought and research on a topic both representative of the faculty member's specialization and likely to attract and hold the interest of a wide, diverse audience. It is expected that this lecture will not have previously been delivered to the Hofstra community.
Calls for submission are sent out approximately six months prior to each lecture with specific application guidelines. We encourage your participation.
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