Implicit language policies of Spain: achievements and challenges

Abstract

In the eighties of the twentieth century, the existence of implicit language policies based on “linguistic ideology”, also known as “linguistic culture”, was discovered. The language planning of Spain presents a significant interpretation of this strategy. Because of the special characteristics of the linguistic situation in the Hispanic world, the communicative function of Spanish is emphasized and a cooperative and respectful attitude towards other languages of Spain and other Spanish varieties in the world is adopted. The latter one is conducted under the idea of Panhispanism. Implicit policies can avoid conflicts in the protection of a language, however, sometimes they seem soft due to the lack of legal power. So it would be better to apply different language policies according to different cases: use implicit policies in the Hispanic world and explicit ones in the field of ELE; conduct implicit policies to maintain the use of the dominant language and the explicit ones to protect the dominated languages.