Language and migration. The sociolinguistic and glottopolitical dynamics of the Galician community in Buenos Aires from the nineteenth century to the present day

摘要

The present contribution focuses on the Galician-descendant community in the city of Buenos Aires. Its aim is to draw attention on the academic interest of research on the processes of assimilation to the language and identity of reception (in that case, Spanish) and maintenance or recovery of the language and identity of origin in the case of a minority language such as Galician. We show how a peripheral community (peripheral because of its socio-economic and political subalternity), to a large extent defined by speaking a minority language, adapted itself dynamically to a metropolitan environment, maintaining - at least partially - traces of community identity. But we also want to point out how emigration has certain 'rebound effects' on the ethnolinguistic, cultural and glottopolitical dynamics of the land of departure. Or better, how the sociolinguistic, ethnocultural and glottopolitical dynamics of the migrant communities interact with those of the communities of origin. The Galician case presents a particular interest in this regard, as we hope to show.