Cover not available

Article published In: Spanish in Context
Vol. 21:2 (2024) ► pp.219–246

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

Who says ejque?

Spanish language attitudes towards velarized/s/

ORCiD logo with link | University of Mississippi
Published online: 5 November 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.22001.wri
Abstract
This paper examines language attitudes of 386 participants from all regions of Spain toward a phonetic variant used in the Madrid area, velarized coda /s/. Results show that velarized /s/ aids in the identification of a Madrid origin and, moreover, that velarized /s/ speakers are considered lower status, less pleasant, less confident, more of a tough-guy, less desirable as friends, less compatible with the listener and worse storytellers. Nearly all of these traits interact with listener gender in which women show the strongest variable effect. In addition, ethnocentrism is found to play a role in listener judgments, irrespective of the coda /s/ variant used.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
    • 2.1Coda /s/ variation in Madrid
    • 2.2Social perceptions of Central Castilian Spanish in Spain
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Recordings
    • 3.2Survey design
    • 3.3Respondents
    • 3.4Data analysis
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Speaker origin
    • 4.2Status
    • 4.3Pleasantness
    • 4.4Self-confidence
    • 4.5Toughness
    • 4.6Preference for friendship
    • 4.7Evaluation of narration
    • 4.8Evaluation of compatibility
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (40)
References
Barnes, Sonia. 2015. “Perceptual salience and social categorization of contact features in Asturian Spanish.” Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 8 (2): 213–241. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Martin Maechler, Ben Bolker, and Steve Walker. 2015. “Fitting linear mixed-effects models using lme4.” Journal of Statistical Software 67 (1): 1–48. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blanco Canales, Ana. 2004. Estudio sociolingüístico de Alcalá de Henares. Alcalá de Henares: Universidad de Alcalá.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cestero, Ana M., and Florentino Paredes. 2018a. “Creencias y actitudes hacia las variedades cultas del español actual: el proyecto de PRECAVES-XXI.” Boletín de filología 53 (2): 11–43. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018b. “Creencias y actitudes de los jóvenes universitarios del centro-norte de España hacia las variedades cultas del español.” Boletín de filología 53 (2): 45–86. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chappell, Whitney. 2018. “Carineño or mexicano, profesionista or albañil? Mexican listeners’ evaluations of /s/ aspiration and maintenance in Mexican and Puerto Rican voices.” Sociolinguistic Studies 12 (3–4): 367–393. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erker, Daniel. 2010. “A subsegmental approach to coda /s/ weakening in Dominican Spanish.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2031: 9–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard J., and Earl K. Brown. 2011. “The gradient nature of s-lenition in Caleño Spanish.” Language Variation and Change 23 (2): 223–243. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fridland, Valerie, and Kathryn Bartlett. 2006. “Correctness, pleasantness and degree of difference ratings across regions.” American Speech 81 (4): 358–386. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García, Christina. 2019. “Regional Identity in Highland Ecuador: Social evaluation of intervocalic /s/ voicing.” In Recent advances in the study of Spanish sociophonetic perception, ed. by Whitney Chappell, 125–152. Amersterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garrett, P. 2010. Attitudes to language. New York: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gil Peña, Noelia. 2006. “Estudio sociolingüístico de la fonética del madrileño barrio de Salamanca: la -s en posición implosiva.” Español Actual 851: 25–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Guillén, Gabriel. 2018. “Aspiración rasgada: Representación del habla de la calle en el cine realista de España.” Hispania 101 (2): 267–277. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Henriksen, Nicholas, and Sarah K. Harper. 2016. “Investigating lenition patterns in South-Central Peninsular Spanish /sp st sk/ clusters.” Journal of the International Phonetic Association 46 (3): 287–310. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hernández Cabrera, Clara E., and Marta Samper Hernández. 2018. “Creencias y actitudes de los jóvenes universitarios canarios hacia las variedades cultas del español.” Boletín de filología 53 (2):179–208. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Estadística. 2022. [URL]
Kapović, Marko. 2017. “Variable within variable — Simultaneous stability and change. The case of syllable-final /s/ in Ciudad Real.” Borealis: An International Journal of Hispanic Linguistics 6 (2): 249–283. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 2001. Principles of linguistic change: Social factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambert, W. E., R. Hodgson, R. Gardner, and S. Filenbaum. 1960. “Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.” Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 601: 44–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipski, John. 1986. “Reduction of Spanish word-final /s/ and /n/.” The Canadian Journal of Linguistics 311: 139–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manjón-Cabeza Cruz, Antonio. 2018. “Creencias y actitudes de los jóvenes universitarios granadinos hacia las variedades cultas del español.” Boletín de filología 53 (2): 145–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martín Butragueño, Pedro. 2002. Variación lingüística y teoría fonológica. México D.F.: El Colegio de México. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Martínez, María D., and Juan Antonio Moya Corral. 2000. “Reacciones actitudinales hacia la variación dialectal en hablantes granadinos.” Lingüística Española Actual 22 (2):137–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mayer, Mercer. 1969. Frog, where are you? New York: Dial Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méndez Guerrero, Beatriz. 2018. “Creencias y actitudes de los jóvenes universitarios mallorquines hacia las variedades cultas del español.” Boletín de filología 53 (2): 87–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Molina Martos, Isabel. 2015. “La variable sociolingüística — /s/ en el distrito de Vallecas (Madrid).” In Patrones sociolingüísticos de Madrid, ed. by A. M. Cestero Mancera, Isabel Molina Martos and F. Paredes Garcia, 91–115. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Momcilovic, Natasa. 2005. A sociolinguistic analysis of /s/-aspiration in second-generation Madrid speakers. West Lafayette: Purdue University dissertation.
Preston, Dennis. 1989. “Standard English spoken here: The geographical loci of linguistic norms.” In Status and function of languages and language varieties, ed. by Ulrich Ammon, 324–354. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Regan, Brendan. 2019. “Dialectology meets Sociophonetics: The social evaluation of ceceo and distinción in Lepe, Spain.” In Recent advances in the study of Spanish sociophonetic perception, ed. by Whitney Chappell, 85–121. Amersterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Intra-regional differences in the social perception of allophonic variation: The evaluation of [ʧ] and [ʃ] in Huelva and Lepe (Western Andalucía).” Journal of Linguistic Geography 81: 82–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021a. “The social meaning of a merger: The evaluation of an Andalusian Spanish consonant merger (ceceo).” Language in Society 1–30.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2021b. “Differing effects of speaker and listener characteristics on the perception of two traditional Andalusian features undergoing dialect leveling.” In Topics in Spanish Linguistic Perceptions, ed. by Luis A. Ortiz-López and Eva-María Suárez-Büdenbender, 95–116. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
R Core Team. 2018. “R: A language and environment for statistical computing.” R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R FoundationGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mason, Keith. 1994. Comerse las eses — A selective bibliographic survey of s aspiration and deletion in dialects of Spanish. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan dissertation.
Santana Marrero, J. 2018. “Creencias y actitudes de los jóvenes universitarios sevillanos hacia las variedades cultas del español.” Boletín de filología 53 (2): 115–144. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schwegler, Armin, and Juergen Kempff. 2007. Fonética y fonología españolas. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Turnham, M. S., and B. A. Lafford. 1995. “Sex, class, and velarization: Sociolinguistic variation in the youth of Madrid.” In Studies in language learning and Spanish linguistics in honor of Tracy D. Terrell, ed. by P. Hashemipour, R. Maldonado and M. Van Naerssen, 313–339. San Francisco: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vanek, Christian, and Scott McDaniel. 2006. Surveygizmo. Widgix, LLC.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Weatherholtz, Kodi, Kathryn Campbell-Kibler and T. Florian Jaeger. 2014. “Socially-mediated syntactic alignment.” Language Variation and Change 261: 387–420. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yraola, Aitor. 2014. “Actitudes lingüísticas en España.” In Actitudes lingüísticas de los hispanohablantes hacia el idioma español y sus variantes, ed. by Ana Beatriz Chiquito and Miguel Ángel Quesada Pacheco. Bergen Language and Linguistic Studies 51: 551–636. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue