8. Kreyol incursions into Dominican Spanish: The perception of Haitianized speech among Dominicans

Abstract

The Spanish spoken by the fronterizos, Dominicans living along the Haitian border, is often characterized as ‘Haitianized’ by other Dominicans. Whether there are recognizable creoloid features in Dominican Spanish or whether this reflects the wide-spread anti-Haitian sentiment in the Dominican Republic is the impetus for this study. The findings of the study afford insights into the social attitudes and the likely linguistic correlates that contribute to popular negative perceptions of language varieties spoken by fronterizos. In addition, the findings allow for a deeper understanding of language convergence in contact situations without bilingualism.