La influencia de la lengua por los medios de comunicación y la difusión de regionalismos en castellano

Generally, there are no doubts felt that the media influence the language and contribute to the expansion of individual linguistic creations, of group-specific linguistic devices or regionalisms. Yet, proof is lacking that the apparently ‘obvious’ influence of the media does really exist or that it is as strong as commonly maintained, and it is widely admitted that it is almost impossible to gather statistically significant proof of any influence of the media on the language. This contribution gives evidence from Spanish, showing that the regional Spanish words chafardear and chafardero, from the Catalan xafardejar, entered the Spanish language via a popular comic strip published in Spain since the 1940s, and that its knowledge and expansion can definitely be related to the success of the comic strip created by a Catalan artist. The study is based upon a total of 60 interviews done both in the bilingual Catalan-Spanish regions and in non-Catalan regions.