What is ‘neutral’ Spanish?: Perspectives from the US-based television industry
Author ORCID Identifier
0000-0002-9475-9223
Document Type
Paper Presentation
Presenter Language
English
Research Area
Spanish in the US, Sociolinguistics
Location
MBSC Dodge Room 302
Start Date
17-10-2024 1:00 PM
End Date
17-10-2024 1:30 PM
Abstract
James McNamara, the president of Telemundo in the early 2000s, explained in a press statement that the network sought to produce “a neutral television” that speaks a neutral Spanish. Turning television viewers into citizens of an imagined community, united by a common language, ensures a fluid market emanating principally from the US and directed toward Latin America (Valencia & Lynch, 2016). Purportedly, Telemundo and Univision socially engineer a neutral language with which all Spanish speakers in the US and beyond are supposed to identify. Quite possibly, then, the normativizing center for Spanish within the US lies in the postmodern spaces of mass media. This is mediatization as a special case of mediation: “all the representational choices involved in the production and editing of text, image, and talk in the creation of media products” (Jaffe, 2009). One could indeed propose that ‘US Spanish’ is, in part, the work of major television networks such as Univisión and Telemundo. How do producers, news reporters, and actors at these highly lucrative global media industries imagine and approach the task of forging a ‘neutral’ Spanish?
In this talk, we present the findings of a series of reflective interviews with Spanish-language television industry professionals based in Miami, which is home to the major production facilities for both Univision and Telemundo. All were actively employed by one of these networks for local, national or global markets. We posed the following general questions to producers, reporters, and actors of diverse national origins: 1) What is meant by “neutral” Spanish? 2) How do industry professionals idealize and attempt to manifest this mediated variety of Spanish in the process of broadcast production and performance? 3) In which aspects do they seek to modify their own varieties of Spanish for broadcast purposes, and what specific linguistic challenges have they personally experienced in the industry? 4) are linguistic homogenization and language standardization behind the goal of ‘neutral’ Spanish in the US-based television industry? And finally, 5) What do producers, reporters, and actors believe that their audiences expect from them on linguistic grounds?
What is ‘neutral’ Spanish?: Perspectives from the US-based television industry
MBSC Dodge Room 302
James McNamara, the president of Telemundo in the early 2000s, explained in a press statement that the network sought to produce “a neutral television” that speaks a neutral Spanish. Turning television viewers into citizens of an imagined community, united by a common language, ensures a fluid market emanating principally from the US and directed toward Latin America (Valencia & Lynch, 2016). Purportedly, Telemundo and Univision socially engineer a neutral language with which all Spanish speakers in the US and beyond are supposed to identify. Quite possibly, then, the normativizing center for Spanish within the US lies in the postmodern spaces of mass media. This is mediatization as a special case of mediation: “all the representational choices involved in the production and editing of text, image, and talk in the creation of media products” (Jaffe, 2009). One could indeed propose that ‘US Spanish’ is, in part, the work of major television networks such as Univisión and Telemundo. How do producers, news reporters, and actors at these highly lucrative global media industries imagine and approach the task of forging a ‘neutral’ Spanish?
In this talk, we present the findings of a series of reflective interviews with Spanish-language television industry professionals based in Miami, which is home to the major production facilities for both Univision and Telemundo. All were actively employed by one of these networks for local, national or global markets. We posed the following general questions to producers, reporters, and actors of diverse national origins: 1) What is meant by “neutral” Spanish? 2) How do industry professionals idealize and attempt to manifest this mediated variety of Spanish in the process of broadcast production and performance? 3) In which aspects do they seek to modify their own varieties of Spanish for broadcast purposes, and what specific linguistic challenges have they personally experienced in the industry? 4) are linguistic homogenization and language standardization behind the goal of ‘neutral’ Spanish in the US-based television industry? And finally, 5) What do producers, reporters, and actors believe that their audiences expect from them on linguistic grounds?