Cover not available

In:Aspects of Latin American Spanish Dialectology: In honor of Terrell A. Morgan
Edited by Manuel Díaz-Campos and Sandro Sessarego
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 32] 2021
► pp. 125–154

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 6
Complex attitudes towards two sociolinguistic variables and their social meanings

Providing evidence from production and perception data in a speech community

 | Universidad de Puerto Rico at Mayagüez
 | Indiana University
 | Indiana University
Published online: 12 January 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.32.06del
Abstract
This study considers attitudes about variable production of coda /ɾ/ and syllable-initial /r/ in Puerto Rico. Two actors produced typical Puerto Rican allophonic variants of coda /ɾ/ and syllable-initial /r/. Indirect attitudes of sixteen urban speakers were measured through a matched-guise task, and direct attitudes were observed through an interview. For coda /ɾ/, the tap received the highest overall rating, while for syllable-initial /r/, the trill received higher ratings than the posterior /r/. In both cases, men gave higher ratings in comparison to women. The indexical field analysis showed that social meanings change according to the social context in which individuals interact, helping to explain why speakers use traditionally stigmatized forms, since they can also express positive social meanings.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research on Puerto Rican rhotics
    • 2.1Previous research on the production of coda /ɾ/
    • 2.2Previous research on attitudes toward coda /ɾ/
    • 2.3Previous research on the production of /r/
    • 2.4Previous research on attitudes toward /r/
  • 3.Social meanings and indexical fields
  • 4.Justification and research questions
  • 5.Methodology
    • 5.1Matched guise task
    • 5.2Elicitation task
  • 6.Results
    • 6.1Description of variants for coda /ɾ/
    • 6.2Production results of coda /ɾ/
    • 6.3Results of the matched guise test for coda /ɾ/
    • 6.4Production of syllable-initial /r/
    • 6.5Results of the matched guise for /r/
    • 6.6Direct attitudes toward variants of coda /ɾ/ and syllable-initial /r/: An indexical field analysis
  • 7.Discussion and conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (35)
References
Alers-Valentín, H. (1999). La R velar en Puerto Rico: A 50 años del atlas lingüístico de Tomás Navarro Tomás. Horizontales, 41(80), 189–210.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Álvarez-Nazario, M. (1990). El habla campesino del país: Orígenes y desarrollo del español en Puerto Rico. Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beaton, M. E. (2016). Revisiting incomplete neutralization: The case of Puerto Rican Spanish. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics, 22(1), Article 5.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bès, G. (1964). Examen del concepto de rehilamiento. BICC 19, 18–42.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Campbell-Kibler, K. (2007). Accent, (ING) and the social logic of listener perceptions. American Speech, 82(1), 32–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dauphinais-Civitello, A. L. (2018). Retroflex /r/ and incomplete neutralization in Puerto Rican Spanish. Presented at Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS) 2018 . University of Texas-Austin, Austin, Texas.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
De Granda, G. (1966). La velarización de ‘rr’ en el español de Puerto Rico. Revista de Filología Espanola, 49, 181–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Delforge, A. M. (2013). Not correct but not bad either: Another look at the social meaning of “velar r” in Puerto Rican Spanish. In A. M. Carvalho & S. Beaudrie (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 6th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 158–168). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dillard, J. (1962). Sobre algunos fonemas puertorriqueños. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 16(3), 422–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Díaz-Campos, M., Delgado-Díaz, G., & Galarza, I. (2014). La evaluación de dos variables sociolingüísticas en el español de Puerto Rico. Presented at Hispanic Linguistics Symposium (HLS) , 2014. Purdue University.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, P. (2008). Variation and the indexical field. Journal of Sociolinguistics, 12(3), 453–476. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Emmanuelli, M. (2000). Valoración social y actuación lingüística hacia algunas variantes fonológicas del español puertorriqueño. Revista de Estudios Hispánicos, Universidad de Puerto Rico, 27(1), 209–219.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Figueroa, N. & Hislope, K. (1998). A Study of Syllable Final /r/ neutralization in Puerto Rican Spanish. Retrieved on 01/13/2013 from [URL]Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Graml, C. (2009). “Puerto RICO en variación”: Variation, socio-phonétique et son auto-et heterosurveillance par les locutuers- le cas de la vélarisation du /r/ en espagnol portorican (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). Ludwig-Maximilians Universität, Munich, Germany.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hammond, R. M. (1978). An experimental verification of the phonemic status of open and closed vowels in Caribbean Spanish. In H. López-Morales (Ed.), Corrientes actuales en la dialectología del caribe hispánico (pp. 93–125). Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: Editorial Universitaria de la Universidad de Puerto Rico.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1987). Un estudio cuantitativo y teórico de la r velar en Puerto Rico. Káñina, Revista de Artes y Letras, Universidad de Costa Rica, 11, 163–173.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Holmquist, J. C. (2003). Coffee farmers, social integration and five phonological features: Regional socio-dialectology in West-Central Puerto Rico. In L. Sayahi (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the First Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 70–76). Sommerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2008). Gender in context: Features and factors in men’s and women’s speech in rural Puerto Rico. In M. Westmoreland & J. A. Thomas (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 17–35). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, W. (2006). The social stratification of English in New York City (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López-Morales, H. (1979). Velarización de /rr/ en el espanol de Puerto Rico: Índices de actitud y creencias. In H. López-Morales (Ed.), Dialectología y sociolingüística: Temas puertorriqueños (pp. 107–130). Madrid, Spain: Hispanova de Ediciones.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1983). Lateralización de -/r/ en el español de Puerto Rico: Sociolectos y estilos. In J. Fernández-Sevilla, H. López Morales, J. Andrés de Molina, A. Quilis, G. Salvador & E. Alvar (Eds.), Philologica Hispaniensia in honorem Manuel Alvar I: Dialectología (pp. 387–398). Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(2003). A propósito de la sociolingüística aplicada: La /rr/ velar en el español de Puerto Rico. Español Actual: Revista de Español Vivo, 80, 7–13.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Luna, K. V. (2010). The Spanish of Ponce, Puerto Rico: A phonetic, phonological, and intonational analysis (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of California, Los Angeles.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Medina-Rivera, A. (1997). Variación fonológica y estilística en el español de Puerto Rico (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Southern California.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(1999). Variación fonológica y estilística en el español de Puerto Rico. Hispania, 82, 529–541. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Megenney, W. W. (1978). El problema de “R” velar en Puerto Rico. Thesaurus: Boletín del instituto Caro y Cuervo, 33(1), 72–86.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Navarro-Tomás, T. (1948). El español en Puerto Rico. Río Piedras: Editorial Universitaria.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quilis, A. (2000). El reconocimiento de la voz en la investigación judicial. La experiencia del lingüista. In P. Gómez Manzano, P. Carbonero, & M. Casado Velarde (Eds.), Lengua y discurso. Estudios dedicados al Profesor Vidal Lamíquiz (pp. 783–789). Madrid, Spain: Arco/Libros.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ramos-Pellicia, M. F. (2007). Lorain Puerto Rican Spanish and ‘r’ in three generations. In J. Holmquist, A. Lorenzino, & L. Sayahi (Eds.), Selected proceedings of the Third Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics (pp. 53–60). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmidt, L. & Willis, E. (2011). Systematic investigation of voicing assimilation of Spanish /s/ in Mexico City. In S. M. Alvord (Ed.), Selected proceedings of the 5th Conference on Laboratory Approaches to Romance Phonology (pp. 1–20). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, M. (2003). Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication, 23, 193–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simonet, M., Rohena-Madrazo, M., & Paz, M. (2008). Preliminary evidence of incomplete neutralization of coda liquids in Puerto Rican Spanish. In L. Colantoni & J. Steele (Eds.), Laboratory Approaches to Spanish Phonology III (pp. 72–86). Somerville, MA: Cascadilla.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Thomas, E. R. (2011). Sociophonetics: An introduction. Houndmills, UK: Palgrave. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valentín-Márquez, W. (2007). Doing being Boricua: Perceptions of national identity and the sociolinguistic distribution of liquid variables in Puerto Rican Spanish (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, A., García, C., Cortés, Y., Campbell-Kibler, K. (2014). Comparing social meanings across listener and speaker groups: The indexical field of Spanish /s/. Language Variation and Change 26(2), 169–189. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (6)

Cited by six other publications

Beaton, Mary Elizabeth & Zhe Wang
2025. Generational change in the conditioning of coda /r/ manner of articulation in Lorain Puerto Rican Spanish. Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 18:2 ► pp. 261 ff. DOI logo
Delgado‐Díaz, Gibran
2025. La variación fonológica del español puertorriqueño. In Enciclopedia concisa de los dialectos del español en el mundo, ► pp. 183 ff. DOI logo
Willis, Erik W.
2025. Introducción — Español caribeño. In Enciclopedia concisa de los dialectos del español en el mundo, ► pp. 143 ff. DOI logo
Díaz-Campos, Manuel, Molly Cole & Matthew Pollock
2024. Sociolinguistic Approaches to Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology. In The Cambridge Handbook of Bilingual Phonetics and Phonology, ► pp. 65 ff. DOI logo
COLE, MOLLY & JENNY DUMONT
2023. Usage‐Based Theory and Bilingualism. In The Handbook of Usage‐Based Linguistics, ► pp. 363 ff. DOI logo
Pollock, Matthew, Gibran Delgado-Díaz, Iraida Galarza, Manuel Díaz-Campos & Erik W. Willis
2023. The emergence of sound change in two varieties of Spanish. In Innovative Approaches to Research in Hispanic Linguistics [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 38], ► pp. 106 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 12 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue