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Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact: Studies from Africa, the Americas, and Spain
Edited by Rajiv Rao
[Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics 28] 2020
► pp. 263–292

Chapter 10
The interaction of social factors in the acoustically gradient realization of intervocalic /d/ in Border Uruguayan Spanish

| New Mexico State University
| Arizona State University

Along the Uruguayan-Brazilian border, Spanish exhibits phonological influence from Portuguese, including the realization of intervocalic /d/ as a stop. Using conversational data from 40 bilinguals, we analyze tokens of intervocalic /d/ acoustically using a consonant-vowel intensity ratio according to multiple social factors and their interactions. The results suggest that, while interactions are present (with stops being favored by Portuguese-preferring professional females), the main effects of social factors predominate. Younger speakers are moving away from the use of stop-like productions and toward the pan-Hispanic norm of variation between approximants and deletion. Portuguese-preferring speakers make greater use of stop-like variants, as do females, which is explained by the linguistic behaviors of the four women who produced /d/ with the highest intensity ratios.

Keywords: intervocalic /d/, social variation, Border Uruguayan Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, language preference
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1The linguistic situation in Rivera, Uruguay
    • 1.2The /d/ phoneme in Spanish
    • 1.3Variable production of intervocalic /d/ in Rivera Spanish
    • 1.4Objectives of the current research
  • 2.Data and methodology
    • 2.1The Rivera corpus
    • 2.2Assessing language use and preference
    • 2.3Participants for the current research
    • 2.4Measurements and response variables
      • 2.4.1Moderator variables
    • 2.5Social variables
      • 2.5.1Age
      • 2.5.2Sex
      • 2.5.3Profession
      • 2.5.4Language use
      • 2.5.5Language preference
    • 2.6Statistical procedure
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1Language preference and use
    • 3.2Main effects
    • 3.3Interaction
  • 4.Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgement
  • Notes
  • References
  • Appendix
Published online: 6 August 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.28.10wal
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