Spanish in Context - Volume 22, Issue 2, 2025

Abstract

The present investigation examines the expression of futurity (periphrastic vs. morphological future) in Spanish in corpora from Caracas, Venezuela, Mexico City, Mexico, and three cities in Spain. The results indicate that, in the Caracas and Mexico City data, the periphrastic future (PF) has been generalized as the default future expression, while the use of the morphological future (MF) has specialized as an epistemic marker of uncertainty. In Spain, on the other hand, the PF is constrained by some of its source features such as intention of the speaker and temporal proximity. As a result, the MF in Spain still enjoys much of its temporal uses. It is thus shown that, while a variable phenomenon may be constrained by the same independent predictors, the magnitude of effect, and thus the stage of linguistic change, may be different across speech communities.

Abstract

This study documents variable voiceless stop aspiration in Yucatec Spanish in Mayan bilingual communities. Analysis of nearly 6,000 tokens extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with 25 speakers indicates that aspiration of voiceless stops, measured in Voice Onset Time (VOT), is robust, with an overall rate of 41%. Aspiration is conditioned by following phonetic environment as a statistically significant effect and tends to be favored in stressed syllables and word-initial position. As to social factors, men consistently exhibit longer VOT durations across age groups and communities. A novel finding is the absence of an age group effect. Considering the Mayan plosive system, the analyses suggest that aspirated stops are part of a fortition process, as an outcome of indirect contact-induced change. Speakers may use aspiration and other Yucatec Spanish features as linguistics markers of regional identity, given the linguistic diversity and dialect variation in the area.

Resumen

Este trabajo toma el marco del materialismo filosófico para analizar el discurso de la “glotopolítica antipanhispanista”, una corriente sobre las representaciones ideológicas de la lengua española que considera que el panhispanismo es una ideología que legitima un orden de cosas extralingüístico. Ese statu quo consistiría en un neocolonialismo por parte de España sobre los demás países hispanohablantes pivotado sobre la lengua como producto mercantil y sobre el panhispanismo como excusa para perseguir intereses privativos de España. Este país ejercería un paternalismo dada una jerarquía en la que las instituciones académicas españolas están a la cabeza. Este trabajo aplica el materialismo filosófico para analizar críticamente este discurso en el que se detectan tres características fundamentales: (1) es antipanhispanista al limitar las posibilidades de confluencia de Estados en una plataforma geopolítica mayor, el panhispanismo; (2) conforma una “nematología” al carecer de sistematicidad filosófica; y (3) no es “política” en sentido filosófico-materialista.

Abstract

Previous research has found gendered variation in the use of direct reported speech (DRS) in Spanish and other languages, generally suggesting that women use it more often than men, which has been attributed to women’s allegedly higher intersubjectivity. The present study examines DRS in a corpus specifically designed for the study of gendered variation in Spanish. Qualitatively, we identify two basic functions of DRS: narrative and evaluative. We then conduct statistical analyses focusing on gender, age, and discourse topics, considering also the discourse function of the stretch of DRS and to whom it is attributed. Our analyses did not reveal significant gender variation. Rather, speakers’ age, discourse topic, and function of DRS turned out to be more relevant factors, reducing the role of speakers’ gender in accounting for sociolinguistic variation. The study contributes to the growing body of research on DRS and to the less studied field of language and gender in Spanish.

Abstract

Second language pronunciation during immersion involves acquiring features of the local accent rather than just the standard accent. This study examines how well L1 Polish learners, who have lived in Granada for over 10 years, have adopted the local Eastern Andalusian Spanish accent. In Granada, consonants in codas are often deleted, and preceding vowels undergo various changes. The research compares vowel pronunciation between 51 native Granada speakers and 32 L1 Polish speakers. Both segmental (F1 and F2) and suprasegmental (duration, f0, intensity) features are analysed using linear mixed-effects models. Results indicate that while L1 Polish speakers have acquired some segmental features of the Granada accent, they struggle more with suprasegmental features. This difficulty may be due to the limited coverage and awareness of suprasegmental features in phonetic studies and language teaching materials.

Abstracta

Los encapsuladores nominales (Schmid 2000) son mecanismos de cohesión léxica frecuentemente utilizados en la escritura académica. En este estudio guiado por datos se presentan los patrones léxicogramaticales de los encapsuladores nominales cuestión, factor, hecho, idea, tema y problema en un corpus de escritura académica en español de estudiantes universitarios mexicanos. Asimismo, se describen algunas funciones metadiscursivas (Hyland 2005, 2017) que cumplen estos sustantivos, además de la función cohesiva. Los resultados apoyan la evidencia de que los encapsuladores nominales se utilizan, principalmente, para organizar la información, pero también para que los estudiantes emitan opiniones y evaluaciones que orientan la interpretación de los lectores. Se reporta también la identificación de dos nuevos patrones léxicogramaticales: uno ambivalente (que permite la inclusión de una cita) y otro que ejemplifica. Los resultados tienen el potencial de aplicarse en la enseñanza de la escritura académica.

This article reviews Dialectología hispánica. The Routledge handbook of Spanish dialectology978-0-429-29425-9