Spanish & Portuguese

This study relies on an interactional, conversational–analytic approach to elucidate what meanings Chilean Spanish speakers convey via creaky voice quality in informal conversations. Highly creaky utterances produced by 18 speakers were derived from a larger corpus of sociolinguistic interview speech from Santiago, Chile, and examined via an interactional approach that accounted for how creaky voice figured in the process of meaning-making and meaning negotiations throughout the conversation. Results indicate that approximately 40% of highly creaky utterances were used to organize the speaker’s discourse, signaling the end of turns, hedges or uncertainty, and a change in communicative purpose, while the majority of the highly creaky utterances were used to invoke alignment with the listener via ensuring that their messages or stances were understood and potentially endorsed. This study offers evidence from a non-English language for creaky voice as a tool for both discursive organiz...

Background/Aims: In Chilean Spanish, syllable- and word-final /s/ are frequently weakened to an [h]-like segment or completely deleted. In word-final position, /s/ serves as the plural morpheme, so its deletion renders a site for potential neutralization with singular items. Chilean scholars have previously described differences in the vowel preceding weakened or deleted /s/ distinguishing it from non-/s/-final words, but this putative incomplete neutralization has not yet been acoustically verified, nor have its conditioning factors been explored. The primary purpose of this study was to assess via phonetic analysis of spontaneous speech whether neutralization of final vowels in singular words and plural words in Chilean Spanish is indeed incomplete, as hypothesized by scholars during the 20th century. Additionally, these vowels were also compared to the vowels of monomorphemic /s/-final words in order to ensure that the attested singular-versus-plural differences were not simply i...

In this study, we identify the linguistic and social predictors that condition onset /s/ weakening in speech data from sociolinguistic interviews with 72 Salvadoran Spanish speakers. In addition, we compare and contrast the explanatory power of instrumental and traditional segmental approaches. We find that the instrumental approach, which identifies flanking segments, stress, and region of origin of the speaker as conditioners of onset /s/ shortening and lowering of center of gravity, does not account for observed social variation in the data. Contrastingly, an ordinal logistic regression based on a combination of instrumental measures and perceived phonetic categories identifies flanking segment, region of origin, sex, and age of the speaker as predictors of onset /s/ weakening. We conclude that an exclusively instrumental analysis examining variation of onset /s/ thus obscures the potential social meaning of onset /s/ weakening in El Salvador.

El presente trabajo consiste en un analisis variacionista de dos variantes del espanol chileno: la /d/ intervocalica y la /s/. Estas dos variantes se han estudiado de manera exhaustiva en varios paises latinoamericanos, y hasta en ellas se basan categorias para la clasificacion de los dialectos de espanol (Henriquez Urena 1923, Rona 1960, Lipski 1994). Los resultados, basados en el estudio sociolinguistico de dos chilenos, ambos confirman y desmienten lo anteriormente propuesto por otros linguistas en cuanto a estas dos variantes. Esta investigacion resume lo previamente publicado, y ademas plantea investigaciones posibles para el futuro en esta area.

While there is no such shortage of data regarding the enumeration of “Mexican concept fast food chains” such as Taco Bell, Del Taco, and Chipotle, there is a definite dearth of data pertaining to the number of “authentic” Mexican restaurants. The present article explores the concept of authenticity from the consumer’s point of view, explaining the challenges in determining an appropriate definition, establishing various commonalities involved in judging for authenticity of Mexican cuisine, and also showing the distinction between authentic food and authentic restaurants. The final concept that is discussed is that of “heavyweights”, or those who are entitled to classify Mexican food or Mexican restaurants as authentic. The majority of examples are derived from ChowHound.com, a particularly popular online forum. The goal of this article is to bring us one step closer to creating a universal definition of authenticity in terms of Mexican food and restaurants, and to additionally forward the process of the enumeration of authentic restaurants.

Much research has been performed on English spoken with an accent (c.f. Carranza and Ryan 1975; Lippi-Green 1997) and English borrowings in Spanish (c.f. González 1999). However, there is a lack of information regarding Spanish words that maintain their original phonetic realization when spoken in English. The present study reveals data concerning attitudes towards this phenomenon, if and how it is stigmatized, and by whom.

At 12.5% of the population, Hispanics are the largest minority group in the U.S. This article takes into account various food-related studies to show the importance of Hispanic culture in the U.S. food industry. Topics include the increase of Hispanic products, the appearance of ‘authentic’ and Mexican concept restaurants, and the rising number of advertising campaigns directed at Hispanics. The data shows the strength of Hispanic influence and explains why the Spanish language will have increased importance as Hispanic culture becomes a larger player in the U.S.

Este estudio explora el fenómeno del elogio desmedido a la forma de hablar español por parte de un hablante nativo hacia uno no nativo. Aunque podría tratarse sólo de un cumplido, afirmar que la habilidad lingüística de un hablante no nativo es superior a la de uno nativo, también podría provenir de algún tipo de inseguridad respecto a la propia manera de hablar. La inseguridad lingüística de los hablantes nativos frente a los hablantes no nativos ha sido poco estudiada. El presente estudio se llevó a cabo por medio de un blog en el que se solicitaron respuestas y ejemplos de experiencias a hablantes nativos y no nativos. Se examina en qué contextos ocurre este fenómeno: interlocutores, creencias sobre su forma de hablar, definición de “hablar bien”, entre otros aspectos.