Abstract
En la comunidad mexicana comúnmente se percibe que los hablantes del español tienden a omitir el fonema /d/ en posición post-vocálica al final de palabras, tales como /verdad/, /universidad/, etc. A pesar de la creciente cantidad de investigaciones que han centrado su atención en la variación lingüística de grupos hispanohablantes, aún no hay evidencia científica sobre las variables sociolingüísticas que determinan la elisión de este fonema. Con la intención de contribuir a este tipo de investigaciones, el presente estudio explora la elisión del fonema /d/ en posición post-vocálica al final de palabras en el español hablado en la ciudad de Toluca, México. Este estudio involucró el análisis de la elisión de este fonema en relación con variables sociolingüísticas, es decir, género, nivel educativo y cambio de estilo (style-shifting). Los resultados indican que el fonema /d/ tiende a ser elidido por hablantes con niveles educativos bajos; por hombres en vez de mujeres; y durante habla casual. En general, los resultados sugieren que este fenómeno es multifactorial y multidimensional.
Highlights
Until recently, the National Institute of Indigenous Languages (Instituto Nacional de Lenguas Indigenas, INALI1) has claimed that Spanish and 68 indigenous languages are, at present, recognised as national languages which can be used to communicate across the different states that belong to the Mexican Republic
The discussions revolve around the two research questions (i.e., what is the correlation, if any, between sociolinguistic variables such as gender, education level and style shifting, and the elided variant of the phoneme /d/ in postvocalic position at the end of words in the Spanish language spoken in the city of Toluca, Mexico? And what patterns of elision of the phoneme /d/ can be found in the Spanish spoken by the participant speakers in the city of Toluca?), and begin by exploring the total incidence of elision of the phoneme by men and women across the three educational levels
In sum and in addressing the research question: What is the correlation, if any, between sociolinguistic variables such as gender, education level and style shifting, and the elided variant of the phoneme /d/ in postvocalic position at the end of words in the Spanish language spoken in the city of Toluca, Mexico? The above findings indicate that the elision of the phoneme /d/ in postvocalic position correlated significantly with the sociolinguistic variables studied
Summary
Mexican Spanish (MexSp), like any other dialect, varies internally, depending on sociolinguistic factors and context in which speakers find themselves immersed and interacting One example of this social variation is the so-called phenomenon of elision, i.e., the omission or loss of one or more phonemes in a word or phrase during oral discourse (Knowles 1987; Roach 2009). This omission or deletion may occur for both vowels and consonants, it is much more common for consonants as in the case of the phoneme /d/ in postvocalic position at the end of words in Spanish which is the linguistic variable of this study. The words /cannot/ and /would not/ which can acceptably be used as /can’t/ and /wouldn’t/, respectively
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