Cover not available
Article published In:
Journal of Language and Politics
Vol. 12:4 (2013) ► pp.583–605

H.R. 2499 Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010

Language policy and the Burton Amendment

 | Saint Joseph’s UniversityPhiladelphia PA
In 2010, the U.S. House of Representatives passed The Puerto Rico Democracy Act, a bill that ostensibly focused on the authorization of a plebiscite on the Island’s future political status in relationship to the United States. Nevertheless, the final text included language policy on (a) ballot language, (b) official language legislation, and (c) language ideologies favoring English as the “language of opportunity ”. Using CDA, this paper examines the House discussion of the bill on April 29, 2010, as found in the Congressional Record Proceedings and Debates of the 111th Congress. The paper focuses on how the discussion of the bill shifted from political status issues to the inclusion of language policies to be imposed on the Island, the role of the Burton Amendment in shaping these policies, and the ways in which the construction of identity with and through language was both promoted and erased on the House floor.
Keywords: Critical discourse analysis, Spanish, English, Puerto Rico, legitimate language, erasure, identity construction, language policy
Published online: 31 January 2014
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.12.4.05she
References (72)
References
Anglin, Mary. 2004. “Erasures of the Past: Culture, Power and Heterogeneity in Appalachia.” Journal of Appalachian Studies 10 (1–2): 73–84.Google Scholar
Baker, Paul, and Sibonile Ellece. (2011). Key Terms in Discourse Analysis. London: Continuum.Google Scholar
Bamberg, Michael. 2006. “Stories: Big or Small? Why Do We Care?” Narrative Inquiry 16 (1): 139–147. http://dx.doi.org/10.1075/ni.16.1.18bam. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baron, Dennis. (1990). The English-Only Question. New Haven, CT: Yale University.Google Scholar
Barreto, Amílcar. 2000. “Speaking English in Puerto Rico: The Impact of Affluence, Education, and Return Migration.” CENTRO Journal 12 (1): 5–17.Google Scholar
. (2001). The Politics of Language in Puerto Rico. Gainesville: University Press of Florida.Google Scholar
Bea, Keith, and Sam Garrett. 2009. “Political Status of Puerto Rico: Options for Congress. Congressional Research Service Report.” Accessed April 9, 2010. www.crs.gov.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1991. Language and Symbolic Power, ed. by John Thompson. Cambridge: Polity.Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul. 2008. “Political Terminology.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton, and Christina Shäffner, 225–242. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Chilton, Paul, and Schäffner, Christina (eds). (2002). Politics as Text and Talk to Political Discourse. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clachar, Arlene. 1997. “Ethnolinguistic Identity and Spanish Proficiency in a Paradoxical Situation: The Case of Puerto Rican Return Migrants.” Journal of Multilingual and Multi-cultural Development 181: 107–124. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clampitt-Dunlap, Sharon. 2000. “Nationalism and Native-Language Maintenance in Puerto Rico.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1421: 25–34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Congressional Research Service. 2010. H.R.2499 Puerto Rico Democracy Act of 2010. Library of Congress, accessed http://thomas.loc.gov, April 30, 2010.
Crawford, James. 1998. “Language Politics in the U.S.A.: The Paradox of Bilingual Education.” Social Justice 25 (3): 50–69.Google Scholar
De Fina, Anna, Deborah Schiffrin, and Michael Bamberg (eds). (2006). Discourse and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511584459. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Del Valle, Sandra. (2003). Language Rights and the Law in the United States. Clevedon, England: Multilingual Matters. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Duany, Jorge. (2002). The Puerto Rican Nation on the Move: Identities on the Island and in the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina.Google Scholar
. 2005. “The Rough Edges of Puerto Rican Identities.” Latin American Research Review 40 (3): 177–190. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fairclough, Norman. (2003). Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. New York: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2009. “A Dialectical-Relational Approach to Critical Discourse Analysis in Social Research.” In Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Michael Meyer, 162–186. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Fairclough, Norman, and Ruth Wodak. 1997. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Discourse as Social Interaction, ed. by Teun van Dijk, 271–280. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Fayer, Joan. 2000. “Functions of English in Puerto Rico.” International Journal of the Sociology of Languages 1421: 89–102.Google Scholar
Fayer, Joan, Judith Castro, Marta Díaz, and Miriam Plata. 1998. “English in Puerto Rico.” English Today 141: 39–44. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Foucault, Michel 1982. “The Subject and Power.” In Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics, ed. by Hubert Dreyfus, and Paul Rabinow. Chicago: Chicago University.Google Scholar
Habermas, Jürgen. 1984/1987. The Theory of Communicative Action: Reason and the Rationalization of Society, trans. by Thomas McCarthy. Boston: Beacon.Google Scholar
Holmes, Janet, and Meredith Marra. 2005. “Narrative and the Construction of Professional Identity in the Workplace.” In The Sociolinguistics of Narrative, ed. by Joanna Thornborrow, and Jennifer Coates, 193–213. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Irvine, Judith, and Susan Gal. 2000. “Language Ideology and Linguistic Differentiation.” In Regimes of Language: Ideologies, Polities, and Identities, ed. by Paul Kroskrity, 35–79. Santa Fe: School of American Research.Google Scholar
Jaworski, Adam. 2007. “Language in the Media: Authenticity and Othering.” In Language in the Media, ed. by Sally Johnson, and Astrid Ensslin, 271–280. New York: Continuum.Google Scholar
Kerkhof, Erna. 2001. “The Myth of the Dumb Puerto Rican: Circular Migration and Language Struggle in Puerto Rico.” New West Indian Guide 75 (3/4): 257–88. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Krzyżanowski, Michał, and Ruth Wodak. 2010. “Hegemonic Multilingualism in/of the EU Institutions: An Inside-Outside Perspective on the European Language Policies and Practices.” In Mehrsprachigkeit aus der Perspektive zweier EU-Projekte, ed. by Cornelia Hülmbauer, Eva Vetter, and Heike Böhringer, 115–133. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
. 2011. “Political Strategies and Language Policies: The ‘Rise and Fall’ of the EU Lisbon Strategy and its Implications for the Union’s Multilingualism Policy.” Language Policy 10 (2): 115–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Mazak, Catherine. 2008. “Negotiating el difícil: Uses of English Text in a Rural Puerto Rican Community.” CENTRO Journal 20 (1): 50–71.Google Scholar
Negrón Muntaner, Frances. 1997. “‘English Only Jamás but Spanish Only Cuidado’: Language and Nationalism in Contemporary Puerto Rico.” In Puerto Rican Jam: Rethinking Colonialism and Nationalism, ed. by Frances Negrón-Muntaner, and Ramón Grosfoguel, 257–285. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota.Google Scholar
Nickels, Edelmira. 2005. “English in Puerto Rico.” World Englishes 24 (2): 227–38. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-971X.2005.00406.x. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Norton, Julie, and Simon Gieve. 2010. “The Erasure of Linguistic Difference in Media Representations of Encounters with Others on British Television.” Language Awareness 19 (3): 205–225. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09658416.2010.505290. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Okulska, Urszula and Piotr Cap (eds). (2010). Perspectives in Politics and Discourse: Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society, and Culture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ortiz-López, Luis. 2000. “‘Proyecto para formar un ciudadano bilingüe’: Política lingüística y el español en Puerto Rico.” In Research on Spanish in the United States: Linguistic Issues and Challenges, ed. by Ana Roca, 390–405. Somerville: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Pousada, Alicia. 1996. “Puerto Rico: On the Horns of a Language Planning Dilemma.” TESOL Quarterly 30 (3): 499–510. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. “Functions and Valorization of Language in Puerto Rico: Introduction.” CENTRO Journal 20 (1): 4–11.Google Scholar
Rehg, William. 2003. “Habermas, Argumentation Theory, and Science Studies: Toward Interdisciplinary Cooperation.” Informal Logic 23 (2): 161–182. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reisigl, Martin. 2008. “Rhetoric of Political Speeches.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton, and Christina Shäffner, 243–269. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Google Scholar
Reisigl, Martin and Ruth Wodak. (2001). Discourse and Discrimination. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Ricento, Thomas, and Barbara Burnaby (eds). (1998). Language and Politics in the United States and Canada: Myths and Realities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rúa, Pedro Juan. (2002). La encrucijada del idioma. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña.Google Scholar
Sauer, Christoph. 2002. “Ceremonial Text and Talk: A Functional-Pragmatic Approach.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton, and Christina Shäffner, 111–142. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Shenk, Elaine. 2011a. “Constructing Perspectives on Language Diversity in the U.S. Midwest.” Spanish in Context 8 (1): 144–168. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2011b. “Language Officialization in Puerto Rico: Group-making Discourses of Protectionism and Receptivity.” Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 8 (2): 176–202. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sullivan, John. 2007. “How Our Laws Are Made: Forms of Congressional Action. U.S. Library of Congress”, Accessed June 13, 2011, http://thomas.loc.gov/home/lawsmade.bysec/form-sofaction.html#simple.
Teo, Peter. 2000. “Racism in the News: A Critical Discourse Analysis of News Reporting in Two Australian Newspapers.” Discourse and Society 11 (1): 7–49. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres, Lourdes. 2007. “The Politics of English and Spanish Aquí y Allá (Puerto Rico)”. In Spanish on Contact: Policy, Social and Linguistic Inquiries, ed. by Kim Potowski, and Richard Cameron, 81–99. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Torres González, Roamé. (2002). Idioma, bilingüismo, y nacionalidad. San Juan: Universidad de Puerto Rico.Google Scholar
U.S. Congress. 1958. Alaska Statehood Act. Public Law 85–508, 72 Stat. 339, accessed 17 June, 2011, http://www.lbblawyers.com/statetoc.htm.
. 1959. The Admission Act: An Act to Provide for the Admission of the State of Hawaii into the Union. Pub Law 86–3, 73 Stat 4, accessed 17 June, 2011, http://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/vol01_ch0001-0042f/04-ADM/ADM-.htm.
U.S. English, Inc. 2011. U.S. English homepage, accessed November 11, 2010, http://www.usenglish.org.
van Dijk, Teun. 2000. “Parliamentary Discourse.” In Racism at the Top. Parliamentary Discourses on Ethnic Issues in Six European States, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Teun van Dijk, 45–78. Klagenfurt, Austria: Drava Verlag.Google Scholar
. 2001. “Critical Discourse Analysis.” In Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by Deborah Shiffrin, Deborah Tannen, and Heidi Hamilton, 352–371. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
. 2004. “Text and Context of Parliamentary Debates”. In Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Parliamentary Discourse, ed. by Paul Bayley, 339–372. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. (2009). Society and Discourse: How Social Contexts Influence Text and Talk. Cambridge: Cambridge University. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511575273. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
van Eemeren, Frans, and Rob Grootendorst. (2004). A Systematic Theory of Argumentation: The Pragma-Dialectical Approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University.Google Scholar
van Leeuwen, Theo. 2007. “Legitimation in Discourse and Communications.” Discourse and Communication 1 (1), 91–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1750481307071986. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vélez, Jorge. 2000. “Understanding Spanish-language Maintenance in Puerto Rico: Political Will Meets the Demographic Imperative.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1421: 5–24. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Vélez, Jorge, and William Schweers. 1993. “A U.S. colony at a Linguistic Crossroads: The Decision to Make Spanish the Official Language of Puerto Rico.” Language Problems and Language Planning 17 (2): 117–139. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wiley, Terrence. 2010. “Language Policy in the United States.” In Exploring Language Diversity in the United States, ed. by Kim Potowski, 255–271. Cambridge: Cambridge University. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511779855.017Google Scholar
Wodak, Ruth. 2002. “Fragmented Identities: Redefining and Recontextualizing National Identity.” In Politics as Text and Talk: Analytic Approaches to Political Discourse, ed. by Paul Chilton, and Christina Shäffner, 143–169. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. 2008. “The Contribution of Critical Linguistics to the Analysis of Discriminatory Prejudices and Stereotypes in the Language of Politics.” In Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere, ed. by Ruth Wodak, and Veronika Koller, 291–316. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Paul Chilton (eds). (2005). A New Agenda in (Critical) Discourse Analysis: Discourse Approaches to Politics, Society and Culture. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Veronika Koller (eds). (2008). Handbook of Communication in the Public Sphere. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wodak, Ruth, and Michael Meyer (eds). (2009). Methods of Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage, 1–33.Google Scholar
Zentella, Ana Celia. 1990. “Returned Migration, Language, and Identity: Puerto Rican Bilinguals in Dos Worlds/Two Mundos.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 841: 81–100.Google Scholar
. 1999. “Language Policy/Planning and U.S. colonialism: The Puerto Rican Thorn in English-Only’s side.” In Sociopolitical Perspectives on Language Policy and Planning in the USA, ed. by Thom Huebner, and Kathryn Davis, 155–171. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cited by (2)

Cited by two other publications

Barreto, Amílcar Antonio
2016. American Identity, Congress, and the Puerto Rico Statehood Debate. Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism 16:1 ► pp. 100 ff. DOI logo
Shenk, Elaine
2015. El engañolyel cuco: metaphors in the nexus between language and status in Puerto Rico. Language and Intercultural Communication 15:3 ► pp. 324 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 5 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.