The Linguist as a Hero: Rodolfo Lenz and the Field of Language Studies in Chile

• Autor: Rojas, Darío
• Formato: artículo
• Fecha de Publicación: 2025
• Institución: Academia Peruana de la Lengua
• Repositorio: Boletín de la Academia Peruana de la Lengua
• Lenguaje: español
• OAI Identifier: oai:ojs.revistas.apl.org.pe:article/1367
• Enlace del recurso: https://revistas.apl.org.pe/index.php/boletinapl/article/view/1367
• Nivel de acceso: acceso abierto
• Materia: linguistic historiography; glotopolitics; field; heroization; Rodolfo Lenz; historiografía lingüística; glotopolítica; campo; heroización

In this paper, we analyze the process of heroization of the German linguist Rodolfo Lenz (1863-1938) and its relationship with the constitution of the field of language studies in Chile. The analyzed material belongs to a set of biographical discourses dated between 1920 and 1938. As an interpretative framework, we draw on the glotopolitical approach, the studies of the cultural history of science, and the sociology of disciplinary fields. We propose to understand this process as a collective operation that serves to consolidate the field of scientific language studies in Chile, which had been emerging since the last decade of the nineteenth century and which, with the heroization of Lenz, achieves a center or point of reference around which values and positions are established, as well as strategies and interests make sense.