Between Spanish Language and Multilingualism in Spain: The Radical Right Placement

Abstract

Since its irruption in Spanish public institutions in 2018, a new right-wing political party, Vox, has challenged the electoral spectrum of other parties under a nationalist form. This work justifies the classification of Vox within the so-called radical right based on the components of the party’s nativist and authoritarian positions. These premises are deployed in discourses on the Spanish language as the only linguistic axis capable of structuring the nation. Although similar arguments can be found in other right-wing, center-right, or center-left political parties in Spain, Vox explicitly shows its placement. Language policy in Spain fluctuates around two positions related to the legal nature of the official languages. On the one hand, Spanish is the official language of the State and is widely known by the population; on the other hand, linguistic officiality is shared with other languages in several regions. This legal and social situation implies that measures for the protection and promotion of regional languages are perceived as an attack on the vitality of Spanish. We propose an analysis of Vox’s discourse through three channels: first, the organic party documents, as the statutes or the electoral program; second, institutional and journalistic interventions of members with social significance; and third, the publications on Twitter of six relevant components of the party. This material reveals an attack on the linguistic policies of bilingual territories under the premise of Spanish as the common language that balances all citizens. Far from assuming a mere conjunction of particular political phenomena, Vox’s discourse articulates social loyalties, with a direct impact on the coexistence of people from different territories and speakers of different languages. Our purpose is, therefore, to unravel the ideological orientation and tone with which Vox transmits its discourse regarding the social relationship of minoritized languages in Spain with the most widespread language, Spanish.