Language and political consciousness: explorations from the Philippines at the fin de siècle

Abstract At the turn of the twentieth century, the Philippine archipelago transitioned from nearly 400 years of colonial occupation under the Spanish to imperial occupation under the Americans. This analysis interrogates the dynamics through which the heterogeneous languages of the Philippine archipelago were maintained alongside state-sanctioned languages that over time came to create and sustain various forms of consciousness potentiated around the nexus of language. Using a theoretical foundation that intertwines Gramsci and Bakhtin’s understanding of the heteroglossic nature of language, the ways in which the interanimation of languages emerges as a potential site for the realization of certain forms of political consciousness is explored. This analysis interrogates the tensions emergent in forms of discourse linked to the question of language that gave rise to the contemporary linguistic situation in the Philippines today, both “from above” as well as “from below” at the fin de siècle.