Inappropriate Identities: Racialized Language Ideologies and Sociolinguistic Competence in a Study Abroad Context

Abstract

This article examines cases where two study abroad students—Rita and Jack—problematized the normative use of specific dialectal variants by local native speakers at the end of their Spanish immersion program in Peru. Specifically, it explores what these cases reveal about second language learners’ sociolinguistic competence in a study abroad context involving their knowledge of native speaker norms and the contextual appropriateness of target language variation. An analysis of ethnographic data suggests that Rita and Jack interpreted the appropriate use of sociolinguistic variation from the local variety of Andean Spanish by drawing on prevalent racialized language ideologies in the host community that link non-standard variants to an indigenous identity imagined as incompetent in Spanish. These findings validate a need for alternative analytic frameworks that conceptualize second language learners’ development of sociolinguistic competence in terms of language ideologies rather than objective sets of normative native speaker practices. This study advances calls to develop L2 learners’ critical language awareness through curricular innovation and critical pedagogies in study abroad programs.