Lingua e politica nell’Introduzione alla sociolinguistica di Giorgio R. Cardona

«Language, in the sense in which structuralists refer to it, simply does not exist; “language” is primarily a political concept, a social projection, an identification mechanism, but also a sum of abstractions». Cardona, Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Loescher 1987, p. 23. I wish to show not only how this sentence conveys a critical stance towards structuralist theories, rather how its content expresses a turning point, of wide theoretical, interpretative and applicative scope, on the relationship between language and its speakers. The suggested relationship allows foresee promising developments beyond mere research perspectives. The relevance of these developments lays in the scope of the political-planning content, capable of capturing, among other things, the ideas and actions of planetary movements aiming at the recognition of political-cultural and linguistic autonomy of Indigenous peoples and minorities. Peoples that fought for the use and vitality of their own language, perceived it as a cornerstone of their struggle for their increasing presence and visibility in the present world. A turmoil of this kind grew as well among the Huave/ Ikoots of San Mateo del Mar (Oaxaca Mexico), where Cardona carried out his ethnolinguistic research in 1978 and 1982 (as part of the MEIM research group). I will highlight the political significance, for San Mateo’s Huave people, of Cardona’s research that through the years became part of the dynamics of identity rescue. This was possible thanks to historical (national and international) conditions, favorable to the development of a new linguistic awareness among Indigenous people like the Huave, as well as to strengthened osmotic relationships between scholars and their interlocutors. In this process, co-participatory and “restoring” research themes played an important role among those who intended to cover again the research paths traces by Cardona; just as finally the linguistic policies of a U.S. foundation and a Mexican government Institute for Indigenous Languages (INALI), supported the research, on the one hand, and the disseminated the results on the other.