The discursive construction of the scientist-researcher’s self: An exploration of the Spanish linguist Xosé Luis Regueira’s intellectual autobiography

Abstract

This article analyses how the Spanish sociolinguist Xosé Luis Regueira discursively constructs his image as a research scientist in the intelectual autobiography he wrote for the volumen La lingüística en España: 24 autobiografías (Laborda et al. 2014). In his story, Regueira not only reviews his experience in the formal education system in a complete way (school, university and later), but in close relationship with it, he also exposes his experiences and reflections on the situation of linguistic minorization of Galician, his native language. The reflections of the author are analyzed taking the contributions of Systemic-Functional Linguistics (Halliday 2004) and of Appraisal Theory (Kaplan 2004, Martin and White 2005), to classify the expressions that allow us to observe the discursive manifestation of the positions of Regueira around his own image as a research scientist who is a native speaker of Galician. The discursive analysis presented here allows us to conclude that, fort his Spanish sociolinguist, language is a constitutive element of the identity of a subject both at an individual and group level, which establishes a bond between the individual and the community to which he or she belongs. Hence, Regueira’s condition as a native speaker of Galician is inseparable from his training as a linguist who is a specialist in that language and who works for its codification and standardization.