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Article published In: What’s so standard about standards? Variationist principles and debates
Edited by Jonathan R. Kasstan
[Asia-Pacific Language Variation 8:2] 2022
► pp. 240–273

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Authenticity in language ideology

Social variation in Chanka Quechua

 | Indiana University Bloomington
 | New York University
Published online: 1 December 2022
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/aplv.22004.pov
Abstract
Like many marginalized languages, Chanka Quechua (Peru) lacks community-wide prestige norms associated with standard-language ideology. Formal situations require Spanish, and few speakers are literate in Quechua, so normative speech styles are absent. Speakers’ evaluative judgments do not reference notions of correctness; rather, they value puro ‘pure’ speech and authenticity.
This paper explores alternative approaches to accessing sociolinguistic judgments with a study of the variably present uvular phoneme in the past tense /–rqa/ morpheme, as exemplified in the following alternation:
(1)
ri-rqa-ni ~ ri-ra-ni
go-pst-1sg go-pst-1sg
‘I went’ ‘I went’
To contrast speech from sociolinguistic interviews, careful, self-monitored speech is elicited through oral retelling of material presented aurally, rather than in writing. Of 38 participants, rural speakers tend to have higher rates of /q/ than urbanites and reflect idealized puro Quechua. We argue that authenticity guides variation, in place of standard language ideology.
Abstract (Spanish)
Al igual que en otros idiomas marginalizados, en el quechua chanka (Perú) faltan normas de prestigio a nivel de la comunidad que se asocian con la ideología del lenguaje estándar. Las situaciones formales requieren el castellano y pocos hablantes tienen alfabetismo en quechua, así que los estilos normativos del habla están ausentes. Los juicios evaluativos de los hablantes no tienen referencia a las nociones de lo que es correcto, al contrario, valoran el habla pura y la autenticidad.
Este artículo explora los acercamientos alternativos para acceder los juicios sociolingüísticos con una investigación sobre el fonema uvular que es presente de manera variable en el morfema /-rqa/ del tiempo pasado, tal como se ejemplifica en la siguiente alternación:
(1)
ri-rqa-ni ~ ri-ra-ni
go-pst-1sg go-pst-1sg
‘I went’ ‘I went’
En oposición al habla de las entrevistas sociolingüísticas, el habla cuidadosa, auto-monitoreada, se obtiene a través del recuento oral del material que se presenta auditoriamente, en lugar de en la escritura. De los 38 participantes, los hablantes rurales tienden a tener tasas más altas de /q/ que los urbanos, así que refleja el quechua puro idealizado. Argumentamos que la autenticidad guía la variación en lugar de la ideología del lenguaje estándar.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Uvular alternation in Chanka Quechua
    • 2.2Authenticity in discourse
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Data elicitation task
    • 3.3Interview speech
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Results from oral sentence correction task
    • 4.2Results in interview speech
    • 4.3Comparison with exhortative morpheme results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
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