Language Ideology Space and Place Based Identity Formation PDF

Language Sciences 59 (2017) 1–15
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Language Sciences
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/langsci
Language ideology, space, and place-based identity formation

among the Tzotzil Maya of Chiapas, Mexico
Werner Hertzog*, Norbert Ross
Dept. of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, United States
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: In this paper we explore notions of within-group language variation in a Tzotzil Maya town
Received 16 June 2015 of Chiapas, Mexico. Integrating GIS mapping, cultural domain analysis, and ethnographic
Received in revised form 20 April 2016 research we find that the Tzotzil of Chenalhó hold a center-diffusion model of language
Accepted 12 June 2016
variation in their municipality. We show that, counter to dichotomous models of identity,
Available online 13 August 2016
people see variation between communities as continuous and use spatial distances as a
proxy for estimating linguistic differences. However, contrary to our expectations, people
Keywords:
do not estimate linguistic distances from their own community; instead, they use the
Language ideology
Ethnicity
presumed pre-conquest center of the larger ethnic group as a point of reference from
Tzotzil Maya which variation emerges. Estimations are further influenced by a notion of a linguistically
Chiapas homogeneous center as well as by socio-political knowledge and stereotypes. These
findings suggest that spatial cognition, combined with social and historical factors, may
play a pivotal role in processes of identity formation and maintenance. Linguistic ideolo-
gies inscribe both deeply buried histories as well as people’s conceptualization of space
and their place in it.
Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
When Our Father Sun changed the languages, people began to split up. They scattered; Some went to the lowlands, Others,
like ourselves, scattered here and there in the highlands. Those who went off together were those who had the same lan-
guage. The different groups were divided according to those who had the same language. Chamula Tzotzil oral legend
(Gossen, 1999)
1. Introduction
In this paper we revisit a debate on the relationship between ethnicity, language, and space by exploring how the Tzotzil
Maya of Chenalhó, Mexico perceive and locate within-group language differences. We focus on the production of identity as it
emerges through the construction of within-community language differences. Our findings are twofold. First, we show that
local understandings of space and place can shape the construction of identity, a finding which complicates dichotomous
models of ethnicity. In dichotomous models, identity formation is the product of partitioning processes in which notions of
‘other’ are built in opposition to ‘self’ (Gal and Irvine, 1995; Bucholtz and Hall, 2003). Instead, we propose a model in which
categorization and ranking of social groups coexist with continuous notions of otherness – that is, people construct identities
* Corresponding author. Dept. of Anthropology, Vanderbilt University, 124 Garland Hall, Nashville, TN 37235, United States. Tel.: þ1 16153202022.
E-mail address: werner.b.hertzog@vanderbilt.edu (W. Hertzog).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2016.06.001
0388-0001/Ó 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
2 W. Hertzog, N. Ross / Language Sciences 59 (2017) 1–15
not only by using binary schemas, but also by estimating degrees of difference. Spatial knowledge, we argue, provides one
possible tool people use to reason about such differences. Second, we show that the Tzotzil-Maya of our studies use within-
group language differences as social commentary, telling us more about the perception of ethnicity than about language.
Refusing simple dichotomies such as indigenous vs. non-indigenous, or state vs. subaltern, we find that the distribution of
perceived language differences constitutes socio-historical commentaries that can be described both as native historiography
and an act of resistance. While difficult to observe directly, we show that these historical and social commentaries can be
detected through the use of indirect elicitation methods combined with ethnographic observation.
Constructed language differences present an idiom for rationalizing and imagining social difference. As such, they provide
us with a window into identity construction, ethnicity, and social history. We take the multiple ideas about language not as
simple representations of language, but as complex representations of people, their relations, and histories. The way people
think and talk about their language is inextricably tied to the formation and maintenance of social identity (Hymes, 1974). Folk
ideas and theories about language have been known as linguistic ideologies, a concept which highlights the partial, socially
constructed, and interest-laden aspects of beliefs about language (Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994). Linguistic ideologies
encompass and interrelate representations of linguistic features and their distribution, social categories, and moral and
aesthetic values. As such, they cannot be seen neutral representations of linguistic phenomena (i.e. as existing independently
of other cultural/cognitive domains), but rather are associated with social hierarchies and stereotypes and evoked by
interested groups or individuals (Kroskrity, 2004). Though language ideology can relate to any aspect of a cultural system,
most works on the subject have emphasized its role in mediating between forms of talk and social stereotypes. Irvine and Gal
(2000) have conceptualized this phenomenon as iconization, a semiotic process by which certain linguistic features become
associated to – and seen as iconic of – social identities. Iconization is accompanied by fractal recursivity – the notion that
certain oppositions between groups can generate divisions within those groups at smaller scales – as well as by erasure, a
process by which some social oppositions and groups are made more salient while others are rendered invisible or ignored.
Research on language ideology emerged out of the recognition that social processes such as these can influence language
change, thus posing a challenge to theoretical frameworks that explained change based on internal factors. For example,
through iconization the status of groups can be transferred to the linguistic traits associated with them, creating a ‘linguistic
economy’ in which certain ways of speaking are seen by speakers as more prestigious and desirable than others, shaping
incentives that determine processes of language acquisition and change (Bourdieu, 1977; Silverstein, 1979; Irvine, 1989).
An example of how social hierarchies and linguistic ideologies interact is found in Tzotzil Maya origin myths (recorded by
Norbert Ross in San Andrés Larráinzar, 1991). Here, the characteristics of the mythical founders of respective villages are
sometimes evoked to explain the inter-community linguistic variation encountered. For example, regional mythology tells us
that SanMiguel sat on a stone singing and playing the guitar while his older brother (bankilal) SanAndrés worked hard to
establish their new home, San Andrés Larraínzar. SanAndrés eventually grew tired of his brother and sent him away; San-
Miguel went on to found San Miguel Mitontic, and for this reason, people there are said to speak in a singing voice.1 Both, the
singing voice – and the implicit “laziness” expressed by it – and the older/younger brother dichotomy inscribe a hierarchical
relation between members of the two communities. ‘Its’inal and bankilal, “younger” and “older” brother [of a male individual],
are terms that establish hierarchical relations between Tzotzil men. The two kinship terms are used beyond kinship relations
when two men of different social status address one another, establishing a common framework for the ongoing interaction.
As we can see, myth-based explanations of linguistic differences do much more than simply explain or describe variations in
speech patterns: here, they are used to rationalize status differences between two communities. The inverse is the case when
people imagine linguistic differences based on the existence of real or imaginary social differences. In both cases, a clear
relation between social groups and language differences is established, and as a result, the two are hardly separable.
Here we examine how people construct within group differences by focusing on how perceptions of linguistic differences
and similarities interact with political and geographic boundaries. We are not concerned with the content of differences (how
people talk), but with how people perceive dialectal distances and classify variation. We use quantitative methods to elicit
perceptions of linguistic and geographic distances within a Tzotzil Maya municipality, combined with GIS analyses and
ethnographic research to explore how space and place interact with linguistic/social knowledge. Several of our findings are
noteworthy: first, we show that notions of within-group linguistic differences are strongly influenced by people’s perceptions
of geographic distances between communities. This finding adds a new dimension to the study of language ideology, as it
suggests a strong interrelation between folk knowledge of geography and perceptions of linguistic difference. Second, and
contrary to our initial expectations, our data show that the center for these social/linguistic distance estimations is not a
speaker’s speech community (Ego’s position), but the (presumably) pre-colonial center of the municipality. It is in this area
that people locate the best and purest Tzotzil spoken, and it is to this area that they ascribe the heart of their ethnic identity.
Given the post-colonial relocation of the center town, the cabecera, by non-indigenous people (Mestizos), we argue that this
reflects both the construction of a local identity as well as a social criticism on past and present ethnic relations. Identifying
the community identity with a pre-colonial center rather than the contemporary political center of the municipality, the
cabecera, people undermine the symbolic function of the latter. Third, we show that social identity is not only conceptualized
in dichotomous terms (as in ‘we vs. them’), but also be understood in continuous terms, radiating from a central place. This
1
Similarly, Irvine (1989) documented how Wolof villagers of West Africa explain linguistic variation by way of invented migration histories, seemingly
also adhering to the one people one language theory.
W. Hertzog, N. Ross / Language Sciences 59 (2017) 1–15 3
model is historically contingent in that it includes interspersed groups of people as different, reflecting the incursion of past
state-sponsored population shifts, land tenure restructuring, as well as contemporary religious and political processes of
group formation. By mapping linguistic differences onto space, people create places and place-based identities. Hence our
research adds to our understanding of space, place and the construction of social identity. Fourth and finally, we introduce
new ways of connecting local ethnographic data with experiments from the cognitive sciences and GIS data. It is this
combination of methods and theories that allow us a better understanding of processes of ethnic identity formation, both in
the specific location of our research as well as in more abstract terms. More specifically, combining findings from the cognitive
sciences on how people conceptualize places and regions (McNamara, 1986) with our GIS methods, allows us to explore the
role of spatial regions for the development and conceptualization of social differences.
2. Linguistic ideologies: local and ethnolinguistic
Early work on language ideology focused on ideologies emerging from contexts of nation-state building or colonialism in
which the hegemonic discourses of dominant groups are imposed on linguistic minorities, driving processes of language
erasure and change (cf. review by Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994). A more recent and growing body of research has shown that
minority groups can also articulate ideologies as a means of contesting or resisting language shift (Woolard, 1989; Gal, 1993;
Urla, 2012). An example of the later are the language revitalization movements emerging in Latin America since the late
1980s. Many of these movements seek to reverse language loss by promoting language standardization and grammatical
prescription of native languages. Language revitalization activists recognize that, in critical cases, processes of loss and shift
can only be averted through a combination of formal linguistic documentation and mother tongue education, which often are
only possible with the institutional support from governmental and nongovernmental organizations.
The use of linguistics and formal schooling by revitalization movements is often rooted in contradiction, as activists often
rely on conceptions of standard language that associate literacy with prestige, and which emerged with the rise of modern
states and academic linguistics (Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994, 60–61). The Pan-Maya Movement of Guatemala, for instance,
has sought to reverse language shift brought about by decades of assimilationist policies by the Guatemalan government by
advocating the idea of a unified (pan) Maya ethnic identity (Fischer and Brown, 1996). Pan-Maya linguists discourage the use
of localisms, borrowing, and code-switching, instead favoring standardized forms and native neologisms. Although the
movement has been praised and was in some cases successful at halting language shift (e.g. Collins, 2005; Barrett, 2008),
some Maya communities have been reluctant to join, regarding the movement’s ideology of unification as a threat to local
identities. For instance, the decision by linguists to classify Achi as a dialect of K’iche’ rather than an independent language (as
its speakers see it) brought to light centuries-old animosities between the Achi speakers of Rabinal, and the larger K’iche’
community (England, 2003). As Reynolds (2009) and French (2010) argue, tensions between lay Mayans and Pan-Maya
linguists stem from differences between ‘local’ (or place-based) and ‘ethnolinguistic’ ideologies shaping each group’s un-
derstandings of linguistic variation. Maya groups have traditionally based their identities not so much on shared language or
customs, but on place and territory, with the pueblo or municipality being the locus from which identity is contrasted to
adjacent groups (Tax, 1937; Little, 2004). Pan-Maya activists trace these ‘local’ ideologies back to arbitrary administrative
divisions imposed by the Spaniards and argue that dialect leveling and the adoption of supralocal (standard) varieties can be a
means to recover the ‘original,’ pre-Columbian community boundaries (Cojtí Cuxil, 1994).
While most works on language ideology have focused on ‘ethnolinguistic’ ideologies advanced by revitalization move-
ments, few have paid attention to the ‘local’, more unsystematic notions of language as held by lay Mayan speakers. Contrary
to revitalization movements, for those lay speakers language variation is usually regarded as unproblematic and natural. For
instance, Kroskrity (2009) relates that Western Mono speakers regard linguistic variation and syncretism as the outcome of
family groups, individual differences, and exchanges between them. Similarly, Mannheim (1991, 94–108) notices that
bilingual Quechua-Spanish speakers hold conflicting views regarding heterogeneity in both languages. While variation in
Quechua is perceived as natural and non-hierarchical, Spanish is associated with hypercorrectness, as speakers understand
that competence in Spanish can be translated into increased access to the Peruvian state’s bureaucracy.
‘Local’, non-standardizing ideologies have been overlooked for two reasons: first, in contexts in which metalinguistic
awareness is low, ideas about language can be seen self-evident to speakers, which makes it difficult for linguists to elicit them
directly (Woolard and Schieffelin, 1994, 54). Second, linguistic ideologies in which variation is seen as unproblematic are unlikely
to drive language change, which in turn makes them less noticeable by linguists. For example, Mannheim (1991:96–97) notices
that Quechua speakers have no incentive to copy or borrow from different varieties since they are considered to have equal status.
Though ethnocentrism toward one’s own variety exists, speakers only prescribe local varieties to outsiders who migrate to their
villages. In the absence of an agreed upon notion of ‘standard Quechua’, speakers refrain from prescribing varieties beyond their
corresponding geographical boundaries, thus maintaining variation between communities relatively stable.
Our goal here is not to argue for either ‘local’ or ‘ethnolinguistic’ ideologies; rather, we focus on the first and examine the
mechanisms through which notions of place and space and the perception of linguistic differences are bound together by
speakers.2 Research in the field of perceptual dialectology has explored the identification of dialects with imaginary geopolitical
2
As Field and Kroskrity (2009) argue, a better understanding of ‘local’ linguistic ideologies can actually help revitalization movements by improving the
dialog between naïve and expert speakers.
boundaries (Niedzielski and Preston, 2003; Williams et al., 1999; Diercks, 2002), showing that language and territory are weld
together as important markers of national or regional affiliation. Following this line of studies, our research shows that this
relation of place and social identity also determines within-group language differences.3 Importantly, we find these effects even
in the absence of clearly demarcated boundaries, hence incorporating more localized processes of social order, regional history,
changing power structures and resulting processes of identity formation. We argue that such perceived differences do not
constitute value-neutral observations, but represent commentaries on an existing social order placed within a specific historical
and geographical setting. This is particularly true as we elicited comments from our informants about places with which they
often had limited familiarity, and hence the ascribed language variations do not represent actual observations. Our focus is on
the underlying structure and ideology that leads individuals to identify or imagine such differences, the mechanics behind the
ideological production. This includes both abstract (spatial distance) and more specific principles (social organization) that link
people’s reasoning about language and social life. We argue that one cannot be understood without the other.
3. Chenalhó and the Highlands of Chiapas
Chenalhó is a predominantly Tzotzil Maya municipality of about 36,000 inhabitants in the Highlands of Chiapas (Mexico).
The center town (cabecera or teklum) is home to approximately 3000 people, located in the base of a valley connecting the
hinterland as well as other municipalities to San Cristóbal de Las Casas, the largest urban center in the area. A former colonial
center, San Cristóbal today represents one of the major tourist attractions of the area. For the last (almost) 500 years it also
constituted the main marketplace both for selling and purchasing goods for the surrounding rural communities. Chenalhó’s
cabecera was founded in the late 19th century by a small group of nonindigenous Mestizos (kaxlan, for the Tzotzil Maya), setting
up home and trading posts in the area, exploiting their position as go-between the city and rural indigenous communities (Colby
and van den Berghe, 1961; Köhler, 1980; Ross, 1997). Today a small group of Mestizos share the cabecera as home with mostly
bilingual Tzotzil Maya speakers, who moved there mainly for employment opportunities and to be closer to the municipality’s
only preparatoria (High school). Outside the cabecera, settlements disperse into small hamlets (parajes or comunidades), with
households spread out between agricultural fields. Here, Tzotzil is the primary, when not the only, language spoken.
Chenalhó includes over 100 parajes in an area of approximately 13,000 ha. The first linguistic map of the Highlands was
drawn in the 1960s, dividing Tzotzil into four dialects (Hopkins, 1970). In this map, the Tzotzil of Chenalhó was grouped with
the dialects of Chamula, Mitontic, Chalchihuitán, and Zinacantán as “Central Tzotzil”, while the Tzotzil spoken in Santa
Martha was grouped with Aldama and Simojovel as “Western Tzotzil.” Today Santa Martha is, administratively, part of the
municipality of Chenalhó, yet people usually do not regard the inhabitants of Santa Martha as “Pedranos” (named after San
Pedro Chenalhó) as they maintain their own ‘cargo system,’ fiesta cycle, and traditional dress (Brockmann, 1992). While
Pedranos seem to agree that the Tzotzil spoken in Santa Martha is different from the one spoken in Chenalhó “proper,” a more
recent dialectal map no longer distinguishes the two localities (INALI, 2009). Rather than reflecting actual language change,
the reclassification of Santa Martha likely results from the increasing consolidation of municipal boundaries in Chiapas that
has taken place in the past decades. This reflects just the kind of language ideology we are interested in: changes in the
political geography – the formalization of Santa Martha as a “sector” of Chenalhó by the Mexican government – have resulted
in the erasure of Chenalhó’s internal linguistic varieties.
As discussed above, indigenous municipalities in the area consist of dispersed settlements unified administratively by a
town administrative center (cabecera). In the past these centers have been described as “vacant towns”, which indigenous
people visited to barter goods and services or to fulfill a cargo (Vogt, 1961). Life certainly has changed: today the cabecera of
Chenalhó is a small rural town undergoing rapid modernization (Shenton et al., 2011; Ross et al., 2015). Chenalhó’s first
mention in colonial archives dates back to 1571 (Guiteras-Holmes, 1961; Calnek, 1988). While this established a community
that more or less overlaps with the contemporary municipality (as indicated by parochial letters), nothing is known in terms
of its actual size or sociopolitical organization, and the exact boundaries of the town have shifted several times, including the
already-mentioned incorporation of Santa Martha in the 1930s (Garza Caligaris, 2002) as well as the re-municipalization of
Magdalena, which had historically been a part of Chenalhó until 1998 (Burguete Cal y Mayor, 2007).
Following the Mexican independence, all vacant lands were declared national property and were normally sold.
Whether the land was in fact vacant was frequently ignored, and land auctions often took place in the absence of actual
inhabitants (Ross, 1997). Thus in the 19th century large farms owned by Mestizo and foreign farmers emerged; these
landowners recruited the now landless and unemployed indigenous peasants as work force. During land reform in the
1930s, several of these fincas were expropriated and transformed into ejidos (communal lands) (Rus, 1995), some of which
would later become some of the communities included in the present study. Communities that make up Chenalhó today
differ in age as well as the history of their incorporation. Older communities were usually founded as kin groups around
waterholes and, as a result, kinship plays an important role there. Newer communities are typically the consequence of
population growth and recent political fissures. All communities have equal legal and political status; each is led by a locally
appointed agente municipal. Communities enjoy a significant degree of autonomy from the town’s authorities: most de-
cisions about land or resource management take place locally. Travel between them is mainly for visits to the market,
3
The Tzotzil-Maya of this study relate to the macro level of this relation when they refer to their language as bats’i k’op, “the real or autochthonous
language,” a glossonym related to bats’i vinik, or “real or autochthonous men”.
performing religious rituals, to visit distant family, or for participation in political meetings (more common among men).
Traveling is restricted to nearby communities, although the center town and, increasingly, San Cristóbal also constitute
targets of local and regional travel.
The cabecera was established around the mid-19th century when a group of Mestizo merchants settled there and
developed it into a semi-urban center (Arias, 1990). Notably, this previously uninhabited area is located at the municipality’s
southern border, where its location allows for the control of access to and from San Cristóbal (see map). Today, the cabecera
constitutes the primary destination of internal migration for individuals in search of wage-labor or better schools for their
children. This process accelerated considerably since the 1950s, when the Mexican government, through the Instituto
Nacional Indigenista (INI),4 began to build roads, schools, and medical clinics in the area. While today people are used to
traveling within the municipality, it is not uncommon to find individuals who seldom leave the town or even their com-
munity. Only a minority of individuals (mainly men who have held public office at one point) have traveled to all the
communities within the municipality. Hence, at the municipal level Chenalhó functions as an imagined community bound
together by notions of collective political membership that are realized through service in the civil-religious offices. For
instance, the over 100 agentes municipales meet sporadically in the cabecera to hear reports or vote on matters regarding the
municipality. Meetings like these work to create a sense of common purpose and to disseminate information between
communities. Thus despite a general lack of direct personal experience, individuals can have a good understanding of the
location and economic basis of most of the communities of their municipality.
Dialectal differences between communities exist, but associations tend to be covert – i.e., although people
acknowledge the existence of variation within the town, they cannot necessarily specify what the content of those
differences is. For instance, some speakers from the Santa Martha region substitute /v/ for /h/ in some words, a char-
acteristic associated with the Tzotzil spoken in San Andrés Larraínzar (Hopkins, 1970; de Delgaty and Sánchez, 1978).
Since phonological awareness tends to be low, differences like this do not index group identity or prestige, at least on a
conscious level.5 Awareness of lexical differences is greater since they are more likely to affect comprehension. Still, these
differences are usually associated with varieties spoken by adjacent ethnic groups rather than communities within
Chenalhó. For instance, when we ask people about different ways of speaking Tzotzil, they often respond with anecdotes
about how the neighboring Chamulas have different words (e.g. for ‘foot’ or ‘uphill’), or how their lexicon is more
ancient/primitive. As we noticed earlier in the mythology of Larraínzar, speech from different municipalities is often
associated with prosodic features that correspond ethnic stereotypes. This level of specificity, however, is never reached
when people are asked to describe dialectal variation between Chenalhó’s communities. In addition to low levels of
awareness of within-municipality differences, it is considered impolite to talk about the subject, either in private or
public settings. Since Chenalhó has a history of internal conflict (see section 4), the mere allusion to differences of any
kind could bring to surface latent political tensions. Not only this makes the direct elicitation of perceived differences
difficult but also shows that Chenalhó as an imagined political entity produces a process of erasure that discourages
people from elaborating metalinguistic discourses on internal differences.
Revitalization movements such as the Pan-Maya are unheard of to most Pedranos.6 Whereas Collins (2005) finds that
Mam teachers of Guatemala are less likely to code-switch, here we find the opposite pattern: code-switching increases
with educational attainment. Few people condemn the use of Spanish borrowings; instead, competence in Spanish marks
higher social status. As the town’s written bureaucracy functions entirely in Spanish, being able to speak and write
documents in Spanish is a necessary skill for climbing the social ladder. Conversely, very few individuals write in Tzotzil,
which most people (excepting bilingual teachers) consider a useless or unattainable skill. Most primary and secondary
schools follow the Mexican “intercultural bilingual education” model. This model, however, does not aim at aiding lan-
guage preservation, but its goal is simply to create a smooth transition into teaching in Spanish (by approx. 6th grade). In
fact, Tzotzil Maya is still referred by many (mestizo and indigenous people alike) as ‘dialect’, or in other words, not a
complete language (del Carpio, 2012). Moreover, teachers tend to be mobile: many come from Spanish or Tzeltal speaking
areas, with Tzotzil being their second language; others speak drastically different Tzotzil dialects, hindering at times
mutual understanding.7 Despite those problems, the number of Tzotzil speakers in the town has been increasing steadily
over the past decades due to demographic growth and since bilingual speakers tend to move to Spanish-speaking urban
centers.
4
The National Indian Institute is the Mexican correlate to the Bureau of Indian Affairs in the US.
5
Cargoholders from Santa Martha usually reacted with surprise when the author called their attention to phonemic differences, which suggests that
phonological awareness is low. Still, Marteños have no problem in acknowledging that they speak a different Tzotzil dialect – since logically, “they are
Marteños” – even when they fail to specify the content of these differences. This shows that social categories are more likely to determine perceptions of
linguistic difference than the opposite. Future research may reveal covert associations between some registers and prestige, though this is not our goal here.
6
Following the Zapatista uprising, indigenous organizations of Chiapas (such as Las Abejas) have taken the form of ‘civil societies’ that define their
identities as syncretic, rather than ‘Maya’ (Tavanti, 2003). As a result, Chiapas’ indigenous movements have been less focused on cultural or linguistic
revitalization than their Guatemalan counterparts.
7
For instance, the author once saw a meeting between office holders of a community (most monolingual Tzotzil) and a bilingual teacher from the
municipality of Huixtán. As the officers struggled to understand the teacher’s Tzotzil variety, they frequently had to shift to Spanish as a lingua franca, even
in spite of their limited knowledge of it.
4. Spatial organization of settlement groups in Chenalhó
Through interviews, as well as existing lists and maps provided by the municipality, we sampled a list of 46 communities located
within Chenalhó. These communities vary in size (from 50 to about 3000 inhabitants), location (lowland/highland), their degree of
urbanization, and the time of and the reason for their establishment. They are located in an area of 251 km2 with altitudes ranging
from 722 to 2032 m. Although most are hamlets dedicated to agriculture, raising cattle has become a significant activity. Corn,
beans, squash, and chili peppers are the main cultigens intended for local consumption. Since the 1970s coffee has become the most
important cash crop, followed by corn and some fruit trees. Given the rugged geography, agricultural production is adapted to
different climatic zones and altitudes (Méndez, 2007). While this makes awareness of the landscape critical for farmers, a general
k’ixin ‘osil and sikil ‘osil (hot and cold land) distinction also serves as heuristic for reasoning about the social status of communities.
To explore the spatial organization of Chenalhó’s communities, we used a GIS-based map to calculate distances8 sepa-
rating all communities from one another. Distances between communities represent only one aspect of spatial organization.
People do not inhabit homogenous abstract space, and hence settlement discontinuities are often inflated by geographical
features that impede easy communication (e.g. mountain ranges). We explored the existence and role of such geographical
regions, investigating whether and to what extend they inform peoples’ construction of social identities. In effect, we were
interested in whether geographical regions and settlement discontinuities also represent conceptual regions, that is,
discontinuities that mark social differentiation. To explore discontinuities of actual settlement patterns, we employed a
K-means cluster analysis on a community by community distance matrix. This analysis compares individual distances be-
tween settlements regarding continuities and discontinuities to construct possible settlement clusters that form areas or
regions by way of their locations. The analysis reveals the existence of three clusters/groups of communities. A visual in-
spection of the map of Chenalhó confirmed the relevance of these clusters (see Fig. 1), which we will briefly describe next.
Fig. 1. Map of Chenalhó with the 46 communities included in the research.
8
We calculated both Euclidean and actual road distances. While cars are increasingly common, a network of pathways is still more important than roads
in connecting communities. Still, the two measures are highly correlated. We used maps published by Mexican National Institute of Statistics and Ge-
ography (INEGI).
4.1. Western region
Some of these communities have once been part of other municipalities and only formally joined Chenalhó during the
20th century. The area in the northwest surrounds Santa Martha, encompassing the communities of Atzamilhó, Saclum,
Yocventana, Macuxtetic, San José Tepeyac. Santa Martha and the neighboring town of Aldama (Magdalena) were Jesuit re-
ductions9 established over the preexisting settlements of Chupic and Tanjoveltic (de Vos, 1994, 207). By the early 20th century
most of the land of Santa Martha and Aldama consisted of fincas,10 expropriated and incorporated to Chenalhó’s territory as
agencias municipales in the 1930s (Garza Caligaris, 2002). The same happened to communities of San Antonio Caridad and
Jolxic. As mentioned above, people from Santa Martha are still not regarded as proper Pedranos; Similarly, anthropologists
have usually regarded them as a distinct ethnic group existing within the political boundaries of Chenalhó (Guiteras-Holmes,
1961, 341; Brockmann, 1992). The same goes for Belisario, a former finca dismantled in 1935 and incorporated into Chenalhó’s
territory in 1968 (Cruz Jiménez, 1996). Staffed with workers from neighboring Chamula, those people and their families today
form a “colony” of Chamulas within Chenalhó. The Cabecera is the largest urban area within the municipality and the only
settlement founded by Mestizos and with a Mestizo population, while Natividad, a former finca founded by immigrants from
diverse areas is today classified by the Mexican government as a Tzeltal-speaking community (INALI, 2009).
4.2. Central area
This group corresponds to the surroundings of the large settlement of Yabteclum (population: approx. 2000). Yabteclum
translates as “the place of the (future or past) town/cabecera.” Oral history suggests that this may indeed have been the
previous administrative and ceremonial center of the community (Pérez Enríquez, 1998, 41); Several observations are
interesting in this regard: First, our central feature GIS analysis revealed Yabteclum as the most central community in
Chenalhó (shortest average distance to all other communities). Second, within this general area no finca has ever been
established, suggesting a long history of fairly large continuous settlements impeding the establishment of fincas; this in turn
points at a relatively high local importance of this location in previous eras (Garza Caligaris, 2002). Together these points
establish the importance Yabteclum must have had in the past. (We will come back to this issue in the next section.)
4.3. Eastern region
As in group 1, some of the communities in this cluster were former fincas that became ejidos during the 1930s. The best-
known examples are Puebla, Majomut, and Los Chorros. Polhó is the largest and probably best known Zapatista enclave11
within the boundaries of Chenalhó. Outside observers recognize Acteal as the stage of a massacre of 45 members of the
Las Abejas organization in 1997 by a paramilitary group (Solano and Castillo Ramírez, 2012). Los Chorros (Miguel Utrilla) and
Puebla are large communities, which until the 1930s used to be fincas (Los Chorros, Tanaté, and Los Ángeles) that drew
indigenous workers from different municipalities. Today Los Chorros is well known as harboring a neighborhood (barrio) of
Tzeltal speakers (Köhler and López Comate, 2001; Arias, n.d.). The communities in the northeastern boundary of Chenalhó are
the least known among our participants and the least populated in the town. Letters written in the first half of the 19th
century shows that once the region was the site of a land dispute between residents of Pantelhó and Chenalhó. The area is well
known for higher temperatures and a resulting emphasis on coffee production. It is not uncommon for people in the high-
lands to own land in this area or to visit it sporadically to work on coffee farms.
As can be seen from the discussion and the map, these regions emerged from a confluence of both geomorphological
(mountain ranges and rivers) and historical factors (time of settlement or the emergence of fincas) making up today’s landscape
of the municipality. These data provide the background of our data analysis and the interpretation of its results. We turn next to
the exploration of perceived distances and linguistic differences and the role of regions in the construction of these perceptions.
5. Methods: mapping perceived geographic distance and perceived linguistic variation
A large body of literature exists exploring the relation of language, space, and social identity. Methods used in ‘perceptual
dialectology’ studies are often borrowed from cultural geography: people are shown maps and asked to circumscribe dialectal
boundaries (for a review, see Preston, 2010; for alternatives, Inoue, 1996; Diercks, 2002; Tamasi, 2003). We approach these
methods critically. Given that maps represent territories it seems hard to avoid these territories and not simply ascribe
respective language differences to them. Furthermore, maps have been the main heuristic tool in Western nations to convey
geopolitical information; hence it is not surprising that dialectal boundaries drawn during interviews often coincide with the
very same geopolitical boundaries acquired through maps (a common finding in perceptual dialectology). Moreover, the scale
of the areas used for such studies is often so large that a person could only have learned about it through maps: large-scale
9
Loosely speaking, reducciones are areas where people were (mostly forcefully) gathered to live. Bringing people into closer proximity allowed for easier
control, conversion and taxation.
10
Large landholdings for agricultural production.
11
With Zapatista we refer to followers of the rebellion that started in Chiapas in 1994.
regions such as “Western Europe” or “Southern United States” can only acquire linguistic relevance through the use of modern
cartography and mass communication means. As Preston recognized, “it has perhaps been inappropriate to provide re-
spondents with even minimal outlines of areas on which to draw their mental maps of linguistic differences” (2010, 196).
To avoid these problems we measure perceived language and geographic distances employing a triad-task following Ross
et al. (2005). Triad tasks allow eliciting conceptual distances indirectly and without having to represent concepts visually. The
downside of the method is that a complete triad design (with each possible constellation of triads explored) is almost
impossible to obtain due to the high number of combinations involved. To keep the interview length manageable, we split the
overall interview into three sections.12 For each of the triads the participants were asked the following questions:
Perceived Geographic Distances (PGD): Which of the three communities is the farthest away from the others? Which are the
two communities that are closest to one another?
Perceived Linguistic Differences (PLD): In which community do people speak more differently from the others? Which are the
two communities where people speak more similarly?13
PGD and PLD interviews were conducted on separate occasions. Answers were coded according to the community chosen
as different; “I don’t know” (or if a participant was not familiar with a community) was coded as missing data.14 Interviews
ranged from 20 min to an hour; all were conducted at people’s homes and in Tzotzil Maya by the author, a collaborator, and
two local research assistants.
5.1. Participants
We conducted a total of 251 interviews across the three triad-tasks. While the PLD task was conducted in two different
sites, the PGD sample comes only from the cabecera. The sites sampled with the PLD task were (1) Linda Vista, a small rural
hamlet with a population of approximately 300 people located in cluster 2, and (2) the cabecera. To get from the cabecera to
Linda Vista by car takes approximately one hour (see map, Fig. 1). Including participants from two locations allowed us to
explore whether people conceive of linguistic variation as a simple diversion from their own speech community. Within each
community, sampling was random (among adult members) and restricted only by an individual’s willingness to participate
and her basic familiarity with the 46 communities.
6. Results
6.1. Analysis of consensus
Consensus analysis allowed us both to estimate agreement and to explore systematic disagreement.15 If agreement across
individuals is high, we can capture all individual responses in a single model, the average response of our participants. While
no single individual might completely agree with this aggregate answer, everyone has to be agreeing strongly with the
aggregate, or else there wouldn’t be a consensus (see fn 16). In the case of agreement, first-factor scores represent each
participant’s agreement with the aggregate model. The model invites one to think about both systematic agreement and
disagreement, as the general agreement may be coupled with systematic disagreement, which can be explored with an
12
For this we divided the 46 communities in three random groups. Two communities, Cabecera and Los Chorros were included in all three groups. Not
only are they among the largest communities in the municipality, but also they are usually ascribed to opposite poles of within-municipality comparisons.
We employed a non-random balanced incomplete block design with lambda 3 and 17 items per questionnaire (Burton and Nerlove, 1976). Lambda 3
indicates that each pair of locations is compared three times, each time with a different third location. This design yielded three sets of 136 triads or
interview questions per sitting. We later combined data from the three triad tasks, generating 46 46 distance matrices. This is was possible by using
distances to and from cabecera and Los Chorros as common points of reference to estimate the missing distances with an algorithm by Makarenkov and
Lapointe (2004).
13
In Tzotzil, we phrased this as: “Li talem oxox sbi parajetik [referring to the paper forms], k’u cha’al [interviewer reads the names of three hamlets]. Ta
yoxibalik, boch’o mas ko’ol xlo’ilajik? Boch’o mas jelel xlo’ilajik?” When the remaining two hamlets resembled each other (Mi ta schi’in sbaik [hamlet1] xchi’uk
[hamlet2]? [or] Mi xko’olajik? [or] Mi ko’ol xlo’ilajik?) After about 10 questions we asked people to explain the task back to us, to be sure they understood the
instructions. We repeated the previous questions or the instructions (in different terms) whenever necessary. We also intermittently asked people to
explain their answers (k’u yu’un?), to be sure they were focused on the task and to collect additional information on respondent’s reasoning patterns.
14
Note that “missing data” or similar distances between all three communities have no impact on the resulting community*community distance matrix.
15
An inter-informant agreement matrix (who agrees with whom, how much) provided the input for both, the consensus analysis and the subsequent
analysis of residual agreement (Ross, 2004). We used the formal consensus model (CCM) for multiple-choice questionnaires to measure agreement among
groups of participants and the extent to which each individual agrees with the overall model elicited (Romney et al., 1986). The CCM is a principal
component analysis over the inter-participant agreement matrix. Consensus is found to the extent that the data overall conform to a single factor solution
(e.g. the ratio of first and second factor eigenvalues is large (>3), the first factor explains a large amount of variance, and all participants’ first factor loadings
are high and positive). In this case each participant’s first factor score represents her participation in the consensus, her agreement with everyone else
(Weller, 2007).
16
The notion of residual agreement might be best explained with respect to test taking. If two students study hard yet independently for an exam (with
yes/no answers), their test scores will predict how much they agree with one another. This agreement is simply an outcome of both knowing the right
answers. Any systematic agreement beyond the test scores (residual agreement) cannot be explained as an outcome of their knowledge of the right re-
sponses, but must be explained otherwise; e.g. they studied together and both didn’t understand certain concepts or one copied the exam of the other. The
same logic applies to our analysis. Although we are not dealing with right wrong answers, what “everyone knows” – easily available knowledge does not
tell us much about specific group processes of knowledge acquisition. However, it is the systematic deviations thereof – not the random mistakes – that give
us insights into the social acquisition of knowledge and hence provide us with a window into important processes.
analysis of residual-agreement. Residual agreement is the agreement not explained by two individuals’ participation in the
overall consensus (Boster and Johnson, 1989; Ross, 2004). Said differently, if two individuals agree with the overall aggregate
response key in 90 of 100 answers, then the model predicts that they agree at least in 81% of their answers with one another.16
However, often people agree more with one another than what the model would predict, allowing us to explore the existence
of submodels and systematic disagreement.17
6.2. Perceived geographic distances
We found consensus for each of the triad tasks, e.g. subsets of communities (Table 1), indicating that individuals agree on the
geographic distances between different communities. While women have significantly lower first factor scores than men (0.53
vs. 0.66; t ¼ 3.3376; p ¼ 0.001), residual analysis does not reveal any gender related submodels. This suggests that women know
less (show a greater likelihood of guessing) than their male peers. This interpretation is confirmed by the fact that women’s
responses correlate lower with the correct answer key (from the GIS model) than men’s responses (70% correct answers vs. 61%;
t ¼ 3.5874; p ¼ 0.000). This, in turn, is not surprising, as women’s travel is often restricted to their local community.
6.3. Perceived linguistic differences
We found consensus for all three triad tasks both within and across Linda Vista and cabecera (Table 1), while residual
analysis did not reveal any systematic group differences. That is surprising given that people in the center town not only come
from a broad range of natal places but are also more likely to travel within the municipality. (Hence, we expected a heightened
awareness and greater expertise of linguistic differences.)
6.4. Correlation between perceived linguistic and spatial distances
To examine the correlations between perceived linguistic distances, perceived geographic distances, and real geographic
distances, (GD: Geographic Distance) we compared the different distance matrices with Mantel tests (Mantel, 1967). The
above-described consensus across the two populations formally allowed us to aggregate the data across the two research
sites. We find the highest correlation between perceived geographic distances and real geographic distances (0.78, p < 0.001),
which indicates that people have a very good understanding of relative geographic distances and locations of the different
hamlets of Chenalhó.18 We furthermore find significant correlations between both actual geographic distances as well as
perceived geographic distances with perceived linguistic differences (r ¼ 0.46 and 0.39, p < 0.001 respectively). These cor-
relations show that people’s estimations of between-community linguistic differences are shaped by their perception of
geographic distances, indicating that the prevailing ideology of linguistic differentiation in Chenalhó is based on the idea that
linguistic difference increases with increasing geographic distance.
6.5. Perceived regions
As seen earlier, the cluster analysis over the actual distances resulted in three clusters of communities. While one might be
tempted to call these clusters regions, we were interested whether they relate to conceptual regions that is, whether these
Table 1
Consensus analysis for perceived geographic and linguistic distances triad tasks.
Samples Consensus analysis
Triad tasks Site N (m ¼ male) 1st factor scores 2nd factor scores Ratio 1st/2nd Competence
PGD 1 Cabecera 30 (m:15) 12.48 (0.42) 1.23 (0.04) 10.08 0.627
PGD 2 Cabecera 30 (m:18) 9.14 (0.30) 1.41 (0.05) 6.481 0.524
PGD 3 Cabecera 30 (m:18) 14.50 (0.48) 0.98 (0.03) 14.78 0.664
PLD 1 Both 45 (m:29) 16.20 (0.37) 3.00 (0.06) 6.504 0.574
PLD 2 Both 46 (m:30) 16.84 (0.37) 2.04 (0.04) 8.243 0.583
PLD 3 Both 47 (m:28) 19.75 (0.42) 2.76 (0.06) 7.074 0.624
geographic clusters are conceptualized as abstract categories. Research in spatial cognition has shown that conceptual regions
lead to distortions of distances between objects. Objects belonging to a single “region” tend to be perceived as closer to one
another, while objects belonging to different “regions” tend to be perceived as further apart from one another (McNamara,
1986). To examine this for our clusters, we ran a cluster analysis on the 46 46 matrix of perceived geographic distances
17
Residual agreement is calculated by subtracting two participants’ predicted agreement (the product of two participants’ first factor loadings) from their
observed agreement. The resulting residual-agreement matrix can be explored with respect to group differences (is within-group residual-agreement
higher than between-group residual agreement?).
18
In this paper we use a simple Euclidean measure of geographic distances. We also calculated the shortest road distances and travel times (adjusted for
road type), but these measures had lower correlations with perceived distances (0.58 and 0.34, respectively).
and compared results with the geographic clusters described above. The analysis (depicted in Fig. 2)19 shows that there is an
overall consensus between conceptual and actual geographic regions.20 The major difference seems to be the existence of a
fourth conceptual cluster, which includes some communities situated in Santa Martha. That people single out this area as a
spatial subregion within the Western part Chenalhó shows the influence of ethnicity on conceptions of space.
Given that perceived and actual settlement clusters coincide, we predicted that people would overestimate distances
between and underestimate distances within perceptual clusters. This was indeed the case, as shown by multiple regression
models in Table 2. We regressed perceived distance scores on actual geographic distances and a dummy variable in which ‘1’
coded for distances within clusters and ‘0’ for distances between clusters. The models show that overall distances within
clusters are consistently underestimated within clusters 1 and 3. Cluster 2, however, stood out in that it had the lowest scores
of within cluster underestimation scores.21
These models, together with the correlation tests and the cluster analysis of perceived distances, show that people’s
conceptual maps of Chenalhó are remarkably accurate and correspond tightly to the actual map of the municipality: not only
are distances correlated, but communities are conceptualized as being part of regions that closely resemble actual settlement
clusters. Differences between perceived and actual distances can be explained as distortions stemming from a perceptual
regionalization and by the existence of a distinct ethnic group within the municipality (Santa Martha). As we show below,
these distortions also have an effect on how people perceive linguistic differences within the municipality.
7. Geographic centrality and metalinguistic evaluation
As stated above, we initially assumed that study participants would report linguistic differentiation based on a simple
algorithm equating geographic distance with language differentiation. The above data illustrate that this is indeed the case.
However, further analysis of our data reveal an interesting twist. Rather than using their position as the center of these
calculations, our participants (independent of their location) place the perceived linguistic center of the municipality around.
Fig. 2. Cluster analysis of perceived spatial distances.
Yabteclum, a community in cluster 2. Statistically this relation is expressed in a linear regression where mean perceived
linguistic difference is predicted by the distance from the central hamlet of Yabteclum (R2 ¼ 0.61, p ¼ 0.000) but not the
cabecera (R2 ¼ 0.03, p ¼ 0.12). Of course, there is a mathematical relation between geographic centrality and linguistic
19
Clustering and plots were performed with R package “cluster” (Maechler et al., 2016)
20
We used the Rand index (Rand, 1971) to compare consensus between different cluster solutions (e.g. with two or three clusters) and chose the solution
that had highest consensus scores (Rand index ¼ 0.92). This method is referred to as ‘external validation’ of partitions (see Legendre and Legendre, 2012,
24:416).
21
Most of distances within cluster 2 matched actual distances (a ratio close to 1). Some distances between localities in this cluster were overestimated.
We attribute this effect to the existence of the two main roads that divide the cluster (see Fig. 1) and hence the existence of potential sub-regions.
Table 2
Effect of geographic clusters on estimation of distances between communities.
Cluster N Variables Coefficient (ste) T-value p-Value R2

All clusters 392 Geographic distance 0.742 (0.042) 17.451 <0.000 0.648
Within cluster 0.135 (0.021) 6.388 <0.000
Cluster 1 191 Geographic distance 0.778 (0.050) 15.393 <0.000 0.711
Within cluster 0.196 (0.037) 5.352 <0.000
Within cluster 0.068 (0.044) 1.564 0.119
Within cluster 0.164 (0.023) 6.877 <0.000
Independent variable: perceived geographic distances.
centrality, given that geographic distance and perceived linguistic difference are related. Being the central place, Yabteclum
maintains by definition the lowest average distance to every other community in the set and hence by extension should also
show a low average linguistic difference with respect to all other communities. In this scenario, people would use abstract
distances as a heuristic of calculating linguistic differences – independent of their personal positioning. Yabteclum’s status as
a linguistic center would be simply a consequence of its location, with no additional ideological significance.
To further explore this idea we asked 24 people (14 male) to rank-order cards representing the 46 communities based on
how well Tzotzil Maya (bats’i k’op) is spoken in each location.22 Given the consensus found across the two communities, we only
interviewed participants from the center town. Results revealed a strong consensus.23 An ANOVA showed that hamlets in
geographic cluster 2 and specifically Yabteclum were ranked highest, meaning that participants ascribed the best-spoken
Tzotzil to inhabitants of these communities (mean for cluster 1 ¼ 1.026, cluster 2 ¼ 1.919, cluster 3 ¼ 1.125, F ¼ 17.34;
p < 0.000). The ranking results also correlated significantly with average perceived linguistic difference (r ¼ 0.78, p < 0.000)
and as a logical function of geographic distance from Chenalhó’s center. This is interesting on several counts: rather than
conceiving language differences egocentrically or from the viewpoint of one’s speech community, people in Chenalhó invoke
their shared knowledge of geography and history when judging both linguistic diversity as well as the quality of the Tzotzil
Maya spoken in their municipality. The presumed linguistic center of the municipality is not today’s cabecera – the most
important community, both politically and economically – but Yabteclum, a community that is located at the actual
geographic center of the municipality. This is further confirmed by examining how people classify language groups within
Chenalhó. We performed a cluster analysis on a 46 46 matrix with the differences between linguistic and perceived
geographic distances.24 The results are shown in Fig. 3. Three groups that are closely related to the geographic clusters
detected earlier emerge from this analysis (see map, Fig. 1). We found remarkably high consensus between linguistic and
geographic clusters (using a 3-cluster solution, Rand index score ¼ 0.94).
The ranking data and the cluster analysis results suggest that our study participants do see the region near Yabteclum as a
linguistic region overlapping with the above-established geographic region.
Finally, we were interested in exploring whether the above identified perceptual geographic regions would carry over to
an understanding of linguistic regions. More specifically, we theorized that only cluster 2 would be considered a linguistic
region, from which language change emanates with increasing distance. In this scenario, people would describe communities
within cluster 2 linguistically as more similar to each other than predicted by the geographical distance model (applied by
them when calculating linguistic diversity). We repeated the regression analysis of within/between cluster estimation of
distances, exploring the degree to which perceived linguistic distance deviates from perceived geographic distance. We show
the results in Table 3. Regression models show that within-cluster linguistic distances are underestimated for cluster 2
(distances are 0.20 lower within the cluster) but overestimated (up to 0.15 higher within clusters) for 1 and 3. These results
indicate that this region is perceived as more linguistically homogenous, whereas the other two sectors of Chenalhó are seen
as more heterogeneous (e.g. linguistic distances are overestimated within clusters). The data also show that people exag-
gerate linguistic distances from cluster 2 to all other clusters, an effect that overlaps with the findings discussed above for
perceived geographic distances. Together these data suggest that Tzotzil Maya of Chenalhó employ both their notion of
geographic distances as well as their concepts of geographic regions when reasoning about linguistic differences.
Of course, the heavy use of spatial cognition when reasoning about language diversity does not imply that people do not
also employ other concepts when analyzing how other people speak. We turn now to some cases where the geographic
distance model does not predict linguistic variation.
22
In Tzotzil: bu mas lek sna’ xlo’ilaj bats’i k’op li ta Chenalhó?
23
Ratio 1st/2nd factor ¼ 7.99, percentage of variance explained by first factor: 57%; average first factor score ¼ 0.74. Here we used the informal version of
the cultural consensus model (Romney et al., 1986; Weller, 2007). The informal model replaces the matching agreement matrix with a correlation matrix, a
more adequate way to handle ordinal rankings.
24
We normalized both matrices and then we subtracted PGD from PLD. This was done to control for the influence of perceived distances on how people
categorize speech communities within the municipality. The cluster analysis graph should be interpreted as a map of residual linguistic differences
(excluding perceived geographic distances) between communities.
Fig. 3. Cluster analysis of perceived linguistic distances.
7.1. Fincas as exceptional cases
The model emerging from the above data allowed us to explore which communities violated the expected patterns, e.g. for
which communities the perceived linguistic differentiation fell outside what the model based on geographic distances would
predict. To do so, for each community we created a simple index of spatial and linguistic differences: the ratio of perceived
linguistic difference to perceived geographic distance. We were specifically interested in the communities for which the
perceived linguistic differences are larger than expected based on the perceived geographic distances, as this indicates that
these communities are marked as special, different from the normal pattern of language differentiation. Results were
revealing. All communities for which linguistic variation is higher than predicted by the spatial model are either former fincas
or part of Santa Martha. As discussed above, people of Santa Martha are viewed as representing a separate ethnic group living
Table 3
Influence of geographic clusters on perceived language differences.
Cluster N Explanatory variables Coefficient (SE) T-value R2 p-Value

All clusters 392 Perceived geographic distance 0.561 (0.052) 10.867 0.281 <0.000
Within cluster 0.051 (0.027) 1.872 <0.000
Cluster 1 191 Perceived geographic distance 0.544 (0.055) 9.846 0.307 <0.000
Within cluster 0.137 (0.041) 3.298 ¼0.001
Within cluster 0.200 (0.050) 3.998 <0.000
Within cluster 0.153 (0.033) 4.542 <0.000
Independent variable: Perceived linguistic distances.
within the confines of the administrative unit of Chenalhó. With respect to former fincas, their creation as communities
usually led to the inclusion of people not native to the area (see for example the case of Los Chorros above). In fact, people in
Chenalhó often refer to these communities as “mixed”, or “already mixed” (kapalik xa), referencing the fact that they regard
these places as populated by “non-native speakers”, immigrants who speak a different linguistic variety of Tzotzil or Tzeltal.25
This assertion was especially common among participants from Linda Vista – itself located in the perceived linguistic and
geographic center region of Chenalhó (cluster 2). As discussed above, fincas were indeed a major factor of displacement of
25
Some of these histories of migration are well documented. See for instance the case of the Finca San Francisco Paula, which by the late 19th recruited
immigrants from as far as Guatemala to pick coffee seasonally (Cruz Jiménez, 1996, 71). After the finca was dismantled, residents from many different
hamlets of Chamula and Magdalena (Aldama) asked the Mexican government to formalize the status of their settlement as a community and to acquire
formal tenure of the land. In 1935 the finca became the Colonia Belisario Dominguez, which three decades later would be annexed to Chenalhó’s territory.
peasant families during the early 19th century. However, it is striking that this history remains very much alive for people in
Chenalhó. More than a century and a half later these communities are still marked as non-native speakers and seen as
“mixed,” despite the fact that many are indeed native Tzotzil Maya speakers. It is important to repeat that this conceptual
markedness not only shapes people’s assumptions of how others speak, but also influences their evaluations of how well they
speak. Clearly then, the perceived differences aided in maintaining the conceptualization of these communities as different,
and not in a good way.
8. Discussion: understanding identity in relation to place and space
Language ideologies refer to complex associations between metalinguistic representations and beliefs related to the social
world into which speakers are enculturated. Although Irvine and Gal (2000) have proposed that iconization of linguistic
difference be an important step in the formation of language ideologies, little has been said about 1) how representations of
language differences relate to cultural/cognitive domains other than social identities and classification, and 2) what are the
underlying cognitive processes aiding their production. Similarly, studies in perceptual dialectology have been less concerned
with the actual processes of knowledge production but are usually satisfied with describing differences in how folk linguistic
knowledge is represented, mapped, and evaluated. In contrast, our study focused on exploring the algorithms by which
people make decisions about such variation. We were interested in identifying heuristic principles that guide the ways
humans explore, describe and define the social landscape surrounding them.
Work in language ideology has described the production of identity as a dichotomous process in which groups emerge by
being contrasted to others. Following Bucholtz and Hall (2003, 384) call this phenomenon distinction: it “operates in a binary
fashion, establishing a dichotomy between social identities constructed as oppositional or contrastive. It thus has a tendency
to reduce complex social variability to a single dimension: us versus them.” In the case of Tzotzil Maya of Chenalhó, it appears
that the heuristic principles driving the production of identity within groups are inextricably linked to people’s spatial
reasoning. Participants of our study use spatial distances as a template upon which they make inferences about linguistic
difference and identity, which can aid the production and maintenance of social identities.
In a similar fashion, speakers also use conceptual regions to locate language differences and similarities. Such preconceived
regions become more coherent and in the process – their differences to other units become exaggerated both with respect to
actual spatial distances as well as linguistic differences. Our data suggest that difference comes with a value (or degree)
attached, as the Tzotzil Maya we interviewed clearly envision a linguistic center from which the spoken Tzotzil not only varies
but deteriorates with increasing distance. This spatial way of reasoning is complementary to binary or dichotomous thinking.
As seen earlier, linguistic distances from Chenalhó’s center to fincas tend to be exaggerated, which stems from the fact that
some of these communities are marked as other, in opposition to us, following a dichotomous logic. However, in the absence of
such clear-cut, agreed-upon boundaries separating groups, people use spatial knowledge to estimate proximities. We
speculate that this kind of reasoning is the first step in the process of identity formation. Hence, in addition to iconization,
fractal recursivity, and erasure, future research might examine processes of identity formation that follow a spatial way of
reasoning. For instance, through spatial contagion groups or individuals proximal in space can be considered more or less
similar (e.g. sharing the common properties), and thus constructed as members of the same (or different) group(s). We expect
these mechanisms to hold up cross-culturally: spatial reasoning should provide a generic heuristic for social cognition in any
context.26
When theorizing about ethnicity and identity, social scientists have focused on binary schemes and categorization pro-
cesses while downplaying the sort of continuous reasoning we are describing here. We believe this discrepancy results from
the type of data scholars use to identify ethnic groups: emic terms designating groups or languages (demonyms, glossonyms),
as well as clusivity paradigms (inclusive/exclusive pronouns and verbs). It is easy to see how a focus on emic systems will lead
scholars to see identity formation as a dichotomous partitioning process. Languages and native taxonomies will, through a
process analogous to grammaticalization, weed out continuous or hybrid forms, preserving dichotomous systems in the long
run. Yet the absence of a lexicon for expressing continuity and proximity in social identities does not mean that people do not
reason in continuous terms. We hope to have shown that continuous reasoning patterns can be detected through indirect
elicitation methods such as the triad tasks we used here and that when studying social identity we must be careful not to rely
simply on patterns that our interlocutors can express verbally.
Indirect methods such as triad tasks also allow us to explore historical understandings of communities, which otherwise
remain non-verbalized as well. As we have seen, the results suggest that in Chenalhó, the perceived linguistic center thus
harbors the best form of Tzotzil Maya spoken in the municipality (in a sense the bats’i k’op – the real autochthonous Tzotzil).
This view is held by people in different areas of the municipality and with varying degrees of expertise with the town’s
geographic and cultural landscapes. Several other facts make this interesting. First, this imagined linguistic center is located at
the geographic center of the municipality. Within the context of a pre-colonial (non-extractive) subsistence economy one
would expect – following Christaller’s central place theory (Christaller, 1933) – the center town of a community to be located
26
Future research may explore whether factors related to processes of modernization and urbanization – e.g. decreasing exposure to the environment,
use of maps, schooling, and large-scale mobility – affect the role of spatial reasoning in shaping identity formation. See Proulx et al. (2016) for a more
detailed elaboration of this point.
more or less at equal distances from the outlying hamlets, e.g. at its geographic center. Second, as mentioned above, this area
is also linguistically marked as “the place of the old town,” Yabteclum. Third, the wider area around Yabteclum (cluster 2)
constitutes a conceptual region in the municipality emerging both from a GIS cluster analysis as well as from our formal
interviews. Informally this area is often referred to as yutil lum (Moksnes, 2013, 44), the inside of the land. Interesting here is
also the use of lum (as opposed to osil), referring to the land as a homestead of the Tzotzil Maya, the living landscape inhabited
by ancestors and spirits (Ross, 1997). Fourth and finally, this specific area has remained untouched by fincas, pointing at a
relatively long history of fairly dense settlement, in itself a sign of historical importance.
Together, these factors suggest that this area had social importance in pre-colonial times for the people of Chenalhó. By
locating the linguistic center in that specific area, Yabteclum maintains the role of harboring autochthonous identity, safe-
guarding the “best” Tzotzil Maya of Chenalhó from outside influence represented by a Mestizo settlement (the cabecera),
fincas established in the 19th century, and neighboring communities. One should read this as a refusal to completely cede the
power of identity formation to the present center town that originated in the wake of a non-indigenous driven extractive
economy. Just like Tzotzil Maya ritual humor (Bricker, 1973), it appears that the aspect of language ideology explored in this
paper represents a safe haven for social criticism and the refusal of an existing social order imposed from the outside. Tzotzil
Maya of Chenalhó maintain and nurture an idea of an ethnic (community) identity where the language is not simply Tzotzil
Maya, but the Tzotzil Maya spoken in Chenalhó.
Taken together, language ideology constitutes more than merely reporting on perceived or observed language differences.
Language ideology has to be analyzed as a social behavior in and of itself. In the presented case, how people think about
language differences represents a social commentary of the history of Chenalhó, the resultant distributions of power and
knowledge, as well as complex ethnic relations. Much more fine-grained research is needed to understand the interrelated
processes we explored in this paper, as well as their particular local expressions. However, we hope to have carved a pathway
for future research.
Acknowledgment
The research for this paper has been supported by National Science Foundation grant 0726107 Linguistics to Dr. Norbert
Ross.
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Language Sciences 59 (2017) 1–15

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Language ideology, space, and place-based identity formation

2. Linguistic ideologies: local and ethnolinguistic

3. Chenalhó and the Highlands of Chiapas

4. Spatial organization of settlement groups in Chenalhó

Fig. 1. Map of Chenalhó with the 46 communities included in the research.

4.1. Western region

4.2. Central area

4.3. Eastern region

5. Methods: mapping perceived geographic distance and perceived linguistic variation

6.1. Analysis of consensus

6.2. Perceived geographic distances

6.3. Perceived linguistic differences

6.4. Correlation between perceived linguistic and spatial distances

6.5. Perceived regions

Samples Consensus analysis

7. Geographic centrality and metalinguistic evaluation

Fig. 2. Cluster analysis of perceived spatial distances.

Cluster N Variables Coefﬁcient (ste) T-value p-Value R2

Independent variable: perceived geographic distances.

Fig. 3. Cluster analysis of perceived linguistic distances.

7.1. Fincas as exceptional cases

Cluster N Explanatory variables Coefﬁcient (SE) T-value R2 p-Value

Independent variable: Perceived linguistic distances.

8. Discussion: understanding identity in relation to place and space

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