Information, Medium & Society: Eighteenth International Conference on Publishing Studies

Abstract

An official dictionary of any given language would seem to be an ideal vehicle for establishing a dominant culture in linguistic terms. While all languages have dictionaries, it is exceptional for them to have a dictionary that has a surrounding apparatus that grants it an official character. This is what happens in the Spanish language with the dictionary published by the Real Academia de la Lengua Española (Royal Academy of the Spanish Language). The spread of the language means that the Dictionary of the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language is the point of reference for speakers throughout several continents, in many countries. For this reason, I find this dictionary as a relevant object of study regarding how a dominant culture is reproduced and imposed across a heterogeneous set of nations. While this dictionary used to be authoritative and seemed to dictate, for example, given forms of European Spanish vocabulary as the norm for all speakers -Spanish Americans, of course, included-, it has now been some time that the dictionary has changed its nature and aims at being inclusive. The Academy now works in the new editions and constant updates of the dictionary with the participation of national academies from the Spanish speaking world. I, thus, aim to examine the kind of consequences that this participation and inclusion have. Crucially, I reflect upon whether this process offers anything other than the reproduction of a dominant culture or whether they reshape, in this case, the hegemonic form of the language.