Pluricentric communication beyond the standard language paradigm: perceptions of linguistic accommodation between speakers from Argentina and Spain in a mobility context

Abstract

Globalisation and late-modernity have brought profound socio-political, economic, cultural as well as linguistic transformations. An intensification of mobility and transnational migration around the globe has added a complexity to linguistic interactions and repertoires that can be better analysed with non-essentialist approaches. With this in mind, the aim of this article is to expand the research agenda on pluricentricity beyond the standard language paradigm, which is based on the western conceptualisation of languages as clearly definable and discrete entities. In this respect, we address pluricentricity from the speaker’s perspective as opposed to the traditional perspective focused on standard-setting centres and peripheries. In this article, we adopt a communicative-based perspective on pluricentricity and focus on the potential accommodation behaviour of Spanish speakers from Argentina and Spain in mobility contexts. We conducted 39 semi-structured interviews to access perceptions and attitudes regarding the possible negotiations of short-term convergent norms and the creation of a spontaneous translanguaging space. We assume that awareness of one’s own repertoire as well as tolerance towards the perceived markers of the respective interlocutors’ repertoire are necessary conditions for successful pluricentric communication.