Article published In:
Spanish in ContextVol. 18:3 (2021) ► pp.387–408
Interdental /s/ in Salvadoran Spanish
Linguistic patterns and social meaning
This study provides a systematic account of the occurrence of interdental /s/ in Salvadoran Spanish and explores speakers’ attitudes toward its use.
Specifically, it examines the linguistic, social, and stylistic contexts in which this understudied variant occurs, and it describes how the speakers construct meaning through it despite being a stigmatized variant. It was found that this variant is more likely to be observed in syllable-onset position both word-medially and initially. Additionally, it is more likely to be observed in casual style in the youngest and oldest age groups and it is less likely observed in the speech of professionals. There are indications that this variant is associated with an age-grading phenomena, which is also indicative of stable variation. The present work fills an almost a 30+ year old gap left by previous studies that only briefly touched upon this variant.
Keywords: interdental, sibilant, stigmatized, variation, identity, Salvadoran Spanish
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Previous studies
- 3.Methodology
- 3.1Independent and dependent variables
- 3.2The quantitative analysis
- 3.3The qualitative analysis
- 4.Results
- 4.1Linguistic factors
- 4.2Social factors
- 4.3Style
- 4.4Linguistic attitudes
- 5.Conclusions
- Notes
-
References
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