Marco Espinoza
The constitutional moment in Chile has been highly participative and characterized by the political incorporation of traditionally excluded groups. Conversation and public deliberation have been central in this process. In this context, the diversity of languages and communicative practices has become so relevant that the Convention’s General Regulations explicitly state a series of principles acknowledging the importance of linguistic matters for the deliberative work the Convention (and their relation to rights, non-discrimination, and democratic participation). These include plain language, gender-inclusive language, and linguistic diversity. This presentation focuses on those principles concerned with plurilingualism, multilingual deliberation, and translation of documents from Spanish to the different languages of the territory.
The analysis and discussion will first focus on the debates, arguments, and agents involved in the promotion of this type of language regulations and language regime for the workings of the Convention. This will be followed by a critical discussion of these regulations in relation to legitimacy, inclusion, and linguistic justice. It is argued that these principles and regulations mainly operate on a symbolic level as a legitimating mechanism of the Convention itself as a representative and inclusive institution. The fact that these regulations are entirely written in Spanish, the absence of actual multilingual deliberation, interpretation, and the multiple translations, are a clear indication of the language hierarchies in the territory, and reproduce assumptions about the monolingual functioning of society. It is concluded that the Regulations, despite their possible interpretation as an attempt at linguistic justice, contribute to validate the hegemonic monolingualism in Spanish that characterizes the country’s institutions, and can hardly contribute to prefigure a context of multilingual deliberation and participation in Chilean institutions.
Keywords: Chilean constitutional convention, multilingual deliberation, linguistic justice, hegemonic monolingualism.