Lexis

Diversity and Ideology. Challenges of the Scientific Description of Spanish in Contact with Amerindian Languages

Stefan Pfänder — 2024-12-11

Certain underlying ideologies in society may surface, either consciously or unconsciously, in the linguistic analyses of contact situations. To illustrate this, we present some ideological biases in the treatment of linguistic diversity found in the Nueva gramática de la lengua española (NGLE) and the Diccionario Panhispánico de Dudas (DPD), two significant academic works from 2010 and 2005. We contrast these claims with empirical studies that rigorously analyse Andean Spanish and delve into two types of changes caused by linguistic contact, as well as the attitudes of speakers of the varieties of Spanish described here. We conclude with some final reflections on ideology and the scientific description of linguistic diversity in the Andes.

Vándalos. Una aproximación a la focalización prosódica en las alocuciones presidenciales durante el estallido social de Colombia en 2021

Diana Marcela Muñoz-Builes — 2024-12-11

The objective of this study is to analyze the mechanism of prosodic focalization used by the ex-President Iván Duque in 23 presidential speeches issued between April 22 and May 12 on 2021, during the social outbreak in Colombia. A corpus of 87 phrases was analyzed, distributed in two phases: an analysis of prosodic focalization in phrases that contained words derived from “vandal-” and “estud-”, and an analysis of focalized phrases, although they were not necessarily derived from these lexical families. The results suggest that focalized speech is characterized by a slower rhythm, longer pauses, higher values of F0, and a broader tonal range in comparison to non-focalized speech.

Phrasal verbs as elements of the locutionary frame

Juan A. Martínez López — 2024-12-11

The present study takes as its starting point the exclusion that phrasal verbs traditionally have experienced in the field of phraseological studies, and more specifically, those carried out in the sphere of locutions. In order to determine if the mentioned exclusion has been correct, we have carried out a detailed analysis of a corpus of 50 phrasal verbs, in light of the academic debate that during the last decades has been establishing the main defining criteria of the phrases. The criteria mentioned have been two of a formal nature, such as multiverbality and fixation, and one semantic, the idiomaticity of the whole structure. After this analysis, we have been able to verify that, with certain formal peculiarities typical of these verb+preposition as the propositional reaction and its role as an attachment to the verb, phrasal verbs fully meet the defining criteria.

Barbarisms, vices, and incorrectness. The linguistic attitudes perceived in Equivocaciones de los centroamericanos al hablar castellano (1858) by Juan Eligio de la Rocha

Carmen Martín Cuadrado — 2024-12-11

This paper aims to analyze Equivocaciones de los centroamericanos al hablar castellano (1858), collection by Juan Eligio de la Rocha. Moreover, the study allows us to observe the author’s ideology towards the Nicaraguan language in the 19^th century. Firstly, Juan Eligio de la Rocha is presented like the pioneer in the study of Nicaraguan language and a follower of the purist movement. Furthermore, the linguistic attitudes are analyzed, followed by a classification of the improprieties according to their linguistic field.

The Spanish Lexical Availability of Secondary and High School Students: Incidence of the Sex Variable

Cristina V. Herranz-Llácer — 2024-12-11

The aim of this article is to investigate the impact of the variable sex on the available lexicon of 184 students from 1st year of secondary school and 1st year of high school, and to analyse whether there are differences in the number of words and their usage between males and females. The study utilized the Lexical Availability Index (LAI), Compatibility Index (CI), and the Percentage of Retained Lexical Availability (PRLA) across eight interest areas (five traditional and three novel). The data collection and analysis revealed differences between the two repertoires. The main conclusion highlights the existence of differentiated vocabulary usage in certain areas.

The prefix super- with intensification value: a challenge for current orthography

Alicia Delgado-Olmos — 2024-12-11

There is a widespread tendency among Spanish speakers to adhere to spelling rules, presumably linked to the maintenance of their own image.
Deviations tend to respond, especially in youth or virtual environments, to a deliberate desire to belong to a group or to ignorance. One of the phenomena with the greatest orthographic difficulties is the use of the prefix super- as intensifier, recently rising. For this reason, this study proposes a pan-Hispanic analysis of the frequencies of the different graphic variants and their distribution in corpora with different degrees of familiarity, while seeking to identify potential causes. Additionally, it examines if certain initial consonants in the base words may influence the selection of these variants.

Alto (‘high’/‘tall’), bajo (‘low’/‘short’), profundo (‘deep’) and superficial (‘superficial’): From Dimensional to Qualitative Meaning. Lexicographic Proposal

Carlos Ynduráin Pardo de Santayana — 2024-12-11

The adjectives alto, bajo, profundo and superficial present a network of meanings of metaphorical origin in which these words are related to qualitative concepts apparently far from the physical world. These concepts can be grouped, in the case of high and low, within the categories MOOD (ánimo bajo), MORAL (bajos pensamientos) and IMPORTANCE (alto ejecutivo). In the case of deep and shallow, their qualitative link is maintained with that which, in a general way, we can identify with the ESSENCE OF THINGS (sentimientos profundos). These two pairs of antonyms present important parallels in their metaphorical evolution processes. This article analyzes the cognitive basis of these semantic extensions and discusses their classification for lexicographic treatment.

Den and Cat: Approaches to One Single Cajamarcan Language

Denis Torres Menchola — 2024-12-11

The objective of this paper is to offer an insight on two hypothetical languages from the department of Cajamarca, Peru, named den and cat, whose existence was postulated based on toponymy. From a georeferenced database, a set of toponyms from the department was selected, in which the segments <den> and their variants, associated to the den language, and <cat> and <can> and their variants, linked to the language cat, were identified. The names were cartographically visualized using a geographic positioning system that allowed their exact location based on the use of georeferenced coordinates. The distribution of the toponyms with the three segments allows to assert with confidence that they are part of the same linguistic entity.

“Mrs. So-and-so”: A love letter in the Indigenous Villages of the Pampas

Carlos Gabriel Perna — 2024-12-11

Among the letters preserved in the archive of the indigenous Salinas Grandes settlement, a love letter was found. This letter had immediately a didactic, and mediately an exemplary function, like the others in the notebook that it was part of, which gives these letters an outstanding cultural value, since it deals not only with the mere use of writing, but also with the efforts of the indigenous society to ensure its preservation in the future. The love letter is an effect of the introduction of writing into the indigenous society and gives us access to profound transformation processes that were taking place within the Pampas and Patagonian societies at the time of the military conquest.

Pirates in Print: Richard Hawkins’ Capture and the Origins of the Printing Press in Lima

María Gracia Ríos Taboada — 2024-12-11

In 1594, the first news text was printed in Lima. The “Relación de lo sucedido desde diez y siete de mayo” narrated the triumphant armada sent by Viceroy García Hurtado de Mendoza and the subsequent capture of the English pirate Richard Hawkins. This article aims to delve into the motivations driving the urgency to disseminate this news, along with other documents linked to the event. Additionally, it will explore the nexus between these narratives and the propaganda campaign orchestrated by the Viceroy of Peru in its favor. As will be demonstrated, the presence of European adversaries in America not only intensified the intricate political landscape but also added complexity to the economic relations between Spain and its viceroyalties.

At world time, on the Plane of Immanence. A Reading of Sistema Nervioso by Lina Meruane

Marcelo Navarro Morales — 2024-12-11

This paper analyzes Lina Meruane’s novel, Sistema Nervioso (2018), from the perspective of the notion of the plane of immanence proposed by Deleuze and Guattari (1997). By virtue of the alibi provided by the narrative plot, the intra/extradiegetic narrators of this novel slide from the plane of organization of substantial forms to the plane of consistency of unstable and unformed matter. The plane of immanence, which groups these planes, allows them to see and think about the aberrant zones of communication between kingdoms, genders and species; to attend to the coexistence and simultaneity of diverse temporalities and scales of time and space; and allows them to approach the complex crossroads that the contemporary world faces.

Demystifying Masculinity: Exploring the Queer Subject and Homophobia in Fernanda Melchor’s Temporada de Huracanes (2017)

Gerardo Ruz — 2024-12-11

According to reports from the Observatorio Nacional de Crímenes de Odio contra Personas LGBT, violence towards this community has reached alarming levels in recent years. This problem has reached fiction: Fernanda Melchor addresses this topic in her novel Temporada de huracanes (2017), where the proliferation of hate crimes becomes the central theme. This article carries out a critical study on masculinity and the queer subject, analyzing how the latter influences heterocentric behavior, revealing fissures and alternative identities concealed beneath hypermasculinity. Through a meticulous analysis of the behavior of the main characters, this work scrutinizes the silences, dissonances, and behaviors that unbalance hegemonic masculinity and at the same time, explores how homophobia is used as a tool to maintain social control, which reveals a complex social problem that queer subjects suffer.

The Crisis of the Poetic Voice in El hilo atroz (2021) by Beverly Pérez Rego

Miguel Aguirre-Bernal — 2024-12-11

In El hilo atroz (2021), Beverly Pérez Rego equates writing with weaving and, from there, proposes a crisis of the poetic voice that involves three levels of depth: literary tradition, the poetic subject, and artistic creation. This paper intends to explore the implications of this metaphor and analyze the different modulations that the crisis adopts throughout the collection of poems. These inflections are revealed to be very much in line with the assumptions of postmodernism and end up developing a hyper and intertextual writing made from rags. It concludes by demonstrating how the author postulates the erasure of tradition –the cutting of the hilo atroz– as a literary necessity, in what we call an imperative of destruction.

Suspended ingenuity: A Reinterpretation of Ecuador by Henri Michaux

Esteban Mayorga G. — 2024-12-11

This article revisits Ecuador. A Travel Journal (1929) by Henri Michaux (1899-1984) and argues that unfamiliar or uncanny writing techniques, techniques that should not be in the text due to them being useless to travel, and which cannot be valued for their mimetic imprecision, are key to understanding the text by means of their witty status. The tools used for analysis include theory of emotion, in addition to the theory of the “witty writer,” as Giordano understands it, without ignoring a certain critical tradition of travel literature such as Van den Abbeele (1992), Said (1978) and Musgrove (1999). The central idea proposes that “wittiness” in this travel journal is the best key to experiencing the text as opposed to mimetic theory.

Evando Nacismento y Alberto Giordano. La literatura fuera de sí. Trad., Raúl Rodríguez Freire. Ebook. Santiago: Nube Negra y Bulk editores, 2021. 140 pp.

Diana Blanco Galleguillos — 2024-12-11

Daniela Lauria. Lengua y política: historia crítica de los diccionarios del español de la Argentina. Buenos Aires: Eudeba, 2022. 380 pp.

Piero Renato Costa León — 2024-12-11

Mariana Libertad Suárez (comp.). Sabihondas e indiscretas. Antología de narradoras peruanas, 1917-1957. Lima: Editora Perú, 2022. 200 pp.

Jean Paul Espinoza — 2024-12-11