Taking their bearings from the Prague School of linguistics, these studies define 'language culture' as the efforts undertaken by institutions and individuals to preserve or improve an existing system of verbal communication within a language, in this case standard Spanish. They examine the status, forms and functions of Spanish language culture, placing it first of all within the broader European context and pointing up the unique way in which it combines the traditional with the innovative. In so doing, they provide an invaluable source of knowledge regarding the modernization processes that standard Spanish is subject to and its status within Europe as a whole. As such the studies also represent a touchstone for and potential dialogue with research into language varieties, as these can only be described in the way they compare and contrast with the architecture of standard Spanish.