Cover not available

Article published In: Spanish in Context
Vol. 22:3 (2025) ► pp.545–571

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

Heritage Spanish in Brussels

Case study on coda /s/ production by Andalusian women

ORCiD logo with link | Vrije Universiteit Brussel
 | Vrije Universiteit Brussel
 | Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Open Access logo
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) 4.0 license.

For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.

Open Access publication of this article was funded through a Transformative Agreement with Vrije Universiteit Brussel.

Published online: 8 August 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.24020.per
Abstract
This exploratory study investigates the evolution of coda /s/ weakening in Andalusian Spanish as a heritage language spoken in Brussels. Ongoing change promoted by dialect contact with other Spanish varieties was assessed on speech data retrieved via interviews with first- and second-generation Andalusian immigrants in the city. Their coda /s/ production was analyzed in terms of perceptual categorization, acoustic evidence of frication, and duration. A contrastive analysis throughout these parameters confirmed that, within the sample studied, second-generation speakers weaken coda /s/ considerably less than speakers from the first generation, suggesting a shift from traditional Andalusian speech. These results highlight the importance of sociolinguistic approaches for a thorough understanding of the subtle changes that languages undergo in diasporic contexts.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Previous research
    • 2.1Dialect contact in heritage contexts
    • 2.2Coda /s/ variation
      • 2.2.1Factors that favor /s/ reduction
      • 2.2.2/s/ production in Andalusian Spanish
    • 2.3Spanish in Brussels
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Data collection and participants
    • 3.2Data processing
    • 3.3Data analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Perceptual and acoustic analyses
    • 4.2Results per generation and per speaker
    • 4.3Linguistic conditioning
    • 4.4Regression analysis
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (87)
References
Aaron, Jessi E., and José E. Hernández. 2007. “Quantitative Evidence for Contact-Induced Accommodation: Shifts in /s/ Reduction Patterns in Salvadoran Spanish in Houston.” In Spanish in contact: Policy, social and linguistic inquiries, ed. by Kim Potowski, and Richard Cameron, 327–341. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alba, Orlando. 1990. Variación fonética y diversidad social en el español dominicano de Santiago. Santiago: Pontificia Universidad.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bell, Allan. 1984. “Style as Audience Design.” Language in Society 13 (2): 145–204. [URL]
Blommaert, Jan. 2011. “The Long Language-Ideological Debate in Belgium.” Journal of Multicultural Discourses 6 (3): 241–256. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, and David Weenink. 2022. Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.2.23, retrieved 23 November 2022 from [URL]
Bonomi, Milin. 2010. “La inmigración hispana en Italia: hacia una variedad de contacto entre español e italiano.” Lengua y migración 2 (1): 43–66.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boswijk, Vincent, and Matt Coler. 2020. “What is Salience?” Open Linguistics 6 (1): 713–722. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Britain, David. 2018. “Dialect Contact and New Dialect Formation.” In The handbook of dialectology, ed. by Charles Boberg, John Nerbonne, and Dominic Watt, 143–158. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brogan, Franny D., and Mariška Bolyanatz. 2018. “A Sociophonetic Account of Onset /s/ Weakening in Salvadoran Spanish: Instrumental and Segmental Analyses.” Language Variation and Change 30 (2): 203–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, Esther L., and Rena Torres Cacoullos. 2002. “Que le vamoh aher? Taking the syllable out of Spanish /s/ reduction.” University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 8 (3): 17–78. [URL]
. 2003. “Spanish /s/: A Different Story from Beginning (Initial) to End (Final).” In A romance perspective on language knowledge and use: Selected papers from the XXXI Linguistic Symposium on Romance Languages (LSRL), ed. by Rafael Núñez-Cedeño, Luis López, and Richard Cameron, 21–38. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvi, Maria V. 2011. “El español como lengua inmigrada en Italia.” Lengua y migración 3 (1): 9–31.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Canagarajah, Suresh. 2017. “A Competence for Negotiating Diversity and Unpredictability in Global Contact Zones.” In Diversity and super-diversity: Sociocultural linguistic perspectives, ed. by Ana De Fina, Didedm Ikizoglu, and Jeremy Wegner, 65–79. Washington, DC: Georgetown UP.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carreira, Maria. M. 2021. “The vitality of Spanish as an HL in the US.” In The Cambridge handbook of heritage languages and linguistics, ed. by Silvina Montrul, and Maria Polinski, 230–251. United Kingdom: Cambridge UP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chappell, Whitney. 2021. “/s/ Weakening in Nicaragua.” In Sociolinguistic Approaches to Sibilant Variation in Spanish, ed. by Eva Núñez-Méndez, 217–224. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 1984. “Accommodation at Work: Some Phonological Data and their Implications.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 1984 (46): 49–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 2012. “Three Waves of Variation Study: The Emergence of Meaning in the Study of Sociolinguistic Variation.” Annual Review of Anthropology 41 (1): 87–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erker, Daniel. 2012. An acoustically based sociolinguistic analysis of variable coda /s/ production in the Spanish of New York City (Publication No. 3524150). [Doctoral dissertation, New York University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
. 2018. “Spanish Dialectal Contact in the United States.” In The Routledge handbook of Spanish as a heritage language, ed. by Kim Potowski, 537–554. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Erker, Daniel, and Madeline Reffel. 2021. “Describing and Analyzing Variability in Spanish /s/: A Case Study of Caribbeans in Boston and New York City.” In Sociolinguistic approaches to sibilant variation in Spanish, ed. by Eva Núñez-Méndez, 131–162. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Extra, Guus, and Yagmur Kutlay. 2004. Urban multilingualism in Europe: Immigrant minority languages at home and school. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard. 2009. “The Role of Lexical Frequency in the Weakening of Syllable-Final Lexical /s/ in the Spanish of Barranquilla, Colombia.” Hispania 92 (2): 348–360. [URL]
File-Muriel, Richard, 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
Forlot, Gilles, and Silvia Lucchini. 2019. “Heritage and Family Languages in French-speaking Belgium: Issues of Legitimacy and Integration.” Language Education and Multilingualism — The Langscape Journal 21: 85–101. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garzon, Luis. 2014, June 17. Latin American migrants in bilingual cities: A comparison between Barcelona and Brussels [Paper presentation]. XVIII World Congress of Sociology: Research Committee RC25 Language and Society, Yokohama.
Giles, Howard, Nikolas Coupland, and Justine Coupland. 1991. “Accommodation Theory: Communication, Context, and Consequence. In Contexts of Accommodation: Developments in Applied Sociolinguistics, ed. by Howard Giles, Justine Coupland, and Nikolas Coupland, 1–68. United Kingdom: Cambridge UP. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gradoville, Michael S., Earl K. Brown, and Richard J. File-Muriel. 2022. “The Phonetics of Sociophonetics: Validating Acoustic Approaches to Spanish /s/.” Journal of Phonetics 211: 101125. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harjus, Jannis. 2018. “Sociofonética andaluza y lingüística perceptiva de la variación: el español hablado en Jerez de la Frontera.” Lengua y sociedad en el mundo hispánico 381. Madrid: Iberoamericana Vervuert. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hernández, José Esteban, and Rubén Armando Maldonado. 2012. “Reducción de /s/ final de sílaba entre transmigrantes salvadoreños en el sur de Texas.” Lengua y migración 4(2): 43–67.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Higueras Tolsada, Carmen, and Antonio Daniel Fuentes González. 2017. “Había tanto bueno en Alemania: vivencias para la memoria sociolingüística española.” Tonos digital: Revista de estudios filológicos, 331. [URL]
Hispagenda. 2018. June 19. Fiesta española en Anderlecht. [URL]
Hollebeke, Ily, Graziela N. M. Dekeyser, Thomas Caira, Orhan Agirdag, and Esli Struys. 2022. “Cherishing the Heritage Language: Predictors of Parental Heritage Language Maintenance Efforts.” International Journal of Bilingualism 27 (6): 925–941. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
IBSA. 2023, September 25. Population: Nationalités. Institut Bruxellois de Statistique et d’Analyse. [URL]
. 2024. Mini-Bru: La Région de Bruxelles-Capitale en chiffres. Institut Bruxellois de Statistique et d’Analyse. [URL]
IOM Country Office in Belgium and Luxembourg. 2021. Annual report 2020. International Organization for Migration.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janssens, Rudi. 2015. “Language Conflict in Brussels: Political Mind-Set versus Linguistic Practice.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 2015 (235): 53–76. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Meertaligheid als opdracht: Een analyse van de Brusselse taalsituatie op basis van taalbarometer 41. Brussels: VUB Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jiménez Fernández, Rafael, and Marta León-Castro Gómez. 2023. “Variación En La pronunciación De La /s/ Implosiva: Datos Del Nivel Sociocultural Alto En El Corpus PRESEEA-Sevilla.” Boletín De Filología 58 (2): 371–398. [URL].
Jiménez Ramírez, Félix. 2000. ‘‘El español en la Suiza alemana: características léxicas de la segunda generación de hispanohablantes.” ELUA. Estudios de Lingüística de la Universidad de Alicante 141: 117–150. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jongman, Allard, Ratree Wayland, and Serena Wong. 2000. “Acoustic Characteristics of English Fricatives.” The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 1081: 1252–1263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Boh Y. 2013. “Heritage Language Maintenance and Cultural Identity Formation: The Case of Korean Immigrant Parents and their Children in the USA.” Early Child Development and Care 183(11): 1576–1588. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
León-Castro, Marta. 2024. “Análisis Variacionista de La /s/ Implosiva En El Nivel Sociocultural Bajo de La Ciudad de Sevilla.” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a La Comunicación 981: 129–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Li, Xiangyun, Rik Vosters, and Jianwei Xu. 2022. “Language Maintenance and Shift in Highly Multilingual Ecologies: A Case Study of the Chinese Communities in Brussels.” Journal of Chinese Overseas 18 (1): 31–61. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lipski, John M. 1985. “/s/ in Central American Spanish.” Hispania 68 (1): 143–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012. “Geographical and Social Varieties of Spanish: An Overview.” In The handbook of Hispanic linguistics, ed. by José. I. Hualde, Antxon Olarrea, and Erin O’Rourke, 1–26. West Sussex: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
López Morales, Humberto. 1990. “Entorno a la /s/ final dominicana: Cuestiones teóricas.” Voz y Letra 11: 129–37Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loureda Lamas, Óscar, Francisco Moreno-Fernández, and Héctor Álvarez Mella. 2023. “Spanish as a Heritage Language in Europe: A Demolinguistic Perspective.” Journal of World Languages 9 (1): 27–46. 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
. 2023. “Sociolinguistic Accommodation by Ecuadorian Migrants in Granada (Spain).” In Language Practices and Processes among Latin Americans in Europe, ed. by Rosina Márquez-Reiter, and Adriana Patiño-Santos, 72–101. Routledge Studies in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Méndez-García de Paredes, Elena, and Carla Amorós-Negre. 2019. “The Status of Andalusian in the Spanish-Speaking World: Is it Currently Possible for Andalusia to Have Its Own Linguistic Standardization Process?” Current Issues in Language Planning 20 (2): 179–198. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mettewie, Laurance, and Rudi Janssens. 2006. “Language Use and Language Attitudes in Brussels.” In Multilingualism in European Bilingual Contexts: Language Use and Attitudes, ed. by David Lasagabaster, and Ángel Huguet Canalís, 117–143. Bristol, Blue Ridge Summit: Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milla Muñoz, Ángel. 2020. Beyond stereotypes and visual cues: Assessing language attitudes toward Andalusian Spanish (Publication No. 27960364). [Doctoral dissertation, Indiana University]. ProQuest Dissertations Publishing.
Molina Martos, Isabel. 2010. “Procesos de acomodación lingüística de la inmigración latinoamericana en Madrid.” Lengua y migración 2 (2): 27–48.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moya Corral, Juan A. 2018. “Sobre el equilibrado reajuste de las hablas andaluzas.” Itinerarios 281: 35–66. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Moya Corral, Juan A., and María S. Tejada Giráldez. 2020. “Patterns of the Linguistic Change in Andalusia.” Spanish in Context 17 (2): 200–220. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Narbona Jiménez, Antonio, Rafael Cano Aguilar, and Ramón Morillo Velarde-Pérez. 2011. El Español Hablado En Andalucía. Sevilla: Editorial Universidad de Sevilla (Colección Lingüística, n.º 39). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Núñez-Méndez, Eva. 2022. “Variation in Spanish /s/: Overview and New Perspectives.” Languages 7(2): 77. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Rourke, Erin, and Kim Potowski. 2016. “Phonetic Accommodation in a Situation of Spanish Dialect Contact: /s/ and /r/ in Chicago.” Journal of Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 2 (9): 1–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ana C. Zentella, and David Livert. 2007. “Language and Dialect Contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the Formation of A Speech Community.” Language, 83 (4): 770–802. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poblete, María T. 1995. “El habla urbana de Valdivia: Análisis sociolingüístico.” Estudios Filológicos 301: 43–56.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana. 1980. “The Notion of the Plural in Puerto Rican Spanish: Competing Constraints on (s) Deletion.” In Locating language in time and space, ed. by William Labov, 55–67. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1981. “Mortal Phonemes as Plural Morphemes.” In Variation omnibus, ed. by David Sankoff, and Henrietta Cedergren, 59–71. Carbondale: Linguistic Research.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rodriguez Barrio, Ismaël. 2007. “L’immigration espagnole dans les charbonnages belges.” Belgisch Tijdschrift voor Nieuwste Geschiedenis 37 (3–4): 485–515.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruch, Hanna, and Jonathan Harrington. 2014. “Synchronic and Diachronic Factors in the Change from Pre-Aspiration to Post-Aspiration in Andalusian Spanish.” Journal of Phonetics 451: 12–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruiz Morales, Fernando. 2018. “Emigrantes españoles y asociacionismo flamenco: Estudio de tres casos en Bélgica.” Migraciones Internacionales 9 (35): 71–98. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Saeys, Mathis. 2024. Taalbarometer 5: Factsheet. Brussel: VUB-BRIO. [URL]
Sáenz, Rocío, and Iván Salazar. 2007. “Realidad y sueño latinoamericano en Bélgica.” In Nuevas migraciones latinoamericanas a Europa: Balances y desafíos, ed. by Isabel Yépez del Castillo, and Gioconda Herrera, 167–188. Quito: Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Samper Padilla, José Antonio, and Clara Hernández Cabrera. 2016. “Sobre un cambio en el español de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria: de [s] a [h] en el contexto prevocálico tónico.” In El español a través del tiempo: estudios ofrecidos a Rafael Cano Aguilar, ed. by Araceli López Serena, Antonio Narbona Jiménez, and Santiago del Rey Quesada. Universidad de Sevilla: 119–134.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sancho Pascual, María. 2013. “La integración sociolingüística de la inmigración hispana en España: lengua, percepción e identidad social.” Lengua y migración 5 (2): 91–110.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santana Marrero, Juana. 2018. “Creencias y actitudes de jóvenes universitarios sevillanos hacia las variedades normativas del español de España: andaluza, canaria y castellana.” Pragmática Sociocultural / Sociocultural Pragmatics 6 (1): 71–97. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Santos Díaz, Inmaculada C., and Antonio M. Ávila Muñoz. 2021. “Creencias y actitudes lingüísticas de los universitarios malagueños hacia la variedad andaluza.” Philologia Hispalensis 35 (1): 171–191. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tejada Giráldez, Maria S. 2016. Convergencia y divergencia entre comunidades de habla: a propósito de la/ -s/ implosiva: Contribución al estudio de los patrones sociolingüísticos del español de Granada. [Doctoral dissertation, Universidad de Granada]. Universidad de Granada. [URL]
Terrell, Tracy D. 1978. “Sobre la aspiración y elisión de /s/ implosiva y final en el español de Puerto Rico.” Nueva Revista De Filología Hispánica 27 (1): 24–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Toribio, Almeida J., and Barbara E. Bullock. 2016. “A New Look at Heritage Spanish and its Speakers.” In Advances in Spanish as a heritage language, ed. by Diego Pascual y Cabo, 27–50. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 1986. Dialects in contact. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Uruburu Bidaurrázaga, Agustín. 1990. Estudios sobre la lengua española en Córdoba. Córdoba: Excma.Diputación ProvincialGoogle Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Val, Adriana, and Polina Vinogradova. 2010. Heritage briefs: What is the identity of a heritage language speaker? Center for Applied Linguistics. [URL]
Van De Pol, Tom. 2023, March 17. “Vilvoorde Viert Opnieuw Fiesta Rociera: “Iets Kleinere Versie, Maar We Verwachten Minstens Evenveel Volk”.” Het Laatste Nieuws. [URL]
Vandecandelaere, Hans. 2013. Bruxelles: Un voyage à travers le monde. Brussels: Academic and Scientific Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Verlot, Marcel, and Katelijn Delrue. 2004. “Multilingualism in Brussels.” In Urban multilingualism in Europe: Immigrant minority languages at home and school, ed. by Guus Extra, and Kutlay Yagmur, 221–250. Multilingual Matters. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vida-Castro, Matilde. 2004. Estudio sociofonológico del español hablado en la ciudad de Málaga: condicionamientos sobre la variación de -s en la distensión silábica. Universidad de Alicante.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Variación y cambio fonético en la aspiración de /s/ preoclusiva. Caracterización acústica y distribu-ción social en la ciudad de Málaga.” In El paisaje. Percepciones interdisciplinares desde las Humanidades, ed. by Emilio Ortega Arjonilla, 101–109. Granada, Comares.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vida-Castro, Matilde, Juan Andrés Villena Ponsoda, and Isabel Molina Martos. 2023. “Variación de La /-s/ Postnuclear En Español: Patrones Sociolingüísticos y Geolectales.” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a La Comunicación 941: 23–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vilar Sánchez, Karin. 1995. “For Want of the Standard Educated Variety of Spanish … a German Accent: A Sociolinguistic Case Study.” International Journal of the Sociology of Language 116 (1): 5–16. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Villena-Ponsoda, Juan A. 2008. “Sociolinguistic Patterns of Andalusian Spanish.” International Journal of Sociology of Language 2008(193–194): 139–160. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Von Essen, María Clara. 2020. “On the different ways of being a bidialectal immigrant: The case of Argentineans in Spain.” Lengua y migración 12 (2): 7–43.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue