Enseñanza de lenguas y su impacto en la ecología lingüística

Abstract

Different languages coexist in Mexico, for example the official language: Spanish, minority languages but also foreign languages. The penetration of a language necessarily creates new ideologies and interests for the speakers. The concept of linguistic ecology (Mühlhäusler, 1996; Mackey, 1994) is used here to argue that the coexistence of different languages (that is not intrinsically an harmonious situation) has a social impact which may lead to more advantages for a language over another in an asymmetric relation of power. To show this we use the results of two research about Maya and Otomi to discuss the relation between foreign languages and language shift of minority languages in Mexico.