ABSTRACT
In this chapter I analyze reactions on Twitter to two discursive events in Quechua, a Peruvian indigenous language, which were initiated by non-speakers of the language. The first event involves a greeting in Quechua made by presidential candidate Keiko Fujimori during a presidential debate in 2011, while the second event comprised four published tweets in Quechua by Peruvian soccer player Claudio Pizarro during the Copa America games of 2015. Using the theoretical and methodological frameworks of racialized discourses (Van Dijk, 2005) and citizen sociolinguistics (Rymes & Leone, 2014), I show how Fujimori’s attempt at multicultural inclusivity was positioned as incongruent and laughable due to her ethnic roots and linguistic and family history, while Pizarro’s use of Quechua was positioned as positive and empowering. Both categories suggest essentialist ideologies regarding language and race, as they illustrate a restricted position with respect to who has the “right” to speak Quechua. Without ignoring the important role of context, I note how the language used in responses to Fujimori and Pizarro’s tweets indexed essentialist ideologies regarding the Quechua culture and language.
