Construction and Critique of a Colonial Category: About the Informant in Early South American Linguistics

Abstract

This paper aims to examine a specific aspect of Rodolfo Lenz's work during his early years in Chile: the role of the informant in the construction of the object of study, concerning both Chilean Spanish and, above all, what he would persist in calling "Araucano." In the figure of the informant and the description of his interaction with the specialist, a fundamental aspect of the role of specialized discourse in the discursive construction of the political artifact called “language” can be observed. This process unfolds through an interplay between authority and epistemic delegation, and between the symbolic capital of the professional linguist and the authenticity of the native speaker. By examining the characterization and assessment of the different informants with whom he worked, the specific features of their contributions, the methods he employed to obtain their testimonies, and the distinctions he drew between them, one can observe the contradictions inherent in the coloniality of anthropological and linguistic knowledge—a system for which Lenz was a fitting and prominent representative.