Abstract
We perform a large-scale analysis of language diatopic variation using geotagged microblogging datasets. By collecting all Twitter messages written in Spanish over more than two years, we build a corpus from which a carefully selected list of concepts allows us to characterize Spanish varieties on a global scale. A cluster analysis proves the existence of well defined macroregions sharing common lexical properties. Remarkably enough, we find that Spanish language is split into two superdialects, namely, an urban speech used across major American and Spanish citites and a diverse form that encompasses rural areas and small towns. The latter can be further clustered into smaller varieties with a stronger regional character.
Highlights
Language is the most characteristic trait of human communication but takes on many heterogeneous forms
It is clear from the map that some expressions are strongly clustered in space, allowing us to define regional dialects characterized by the set of dominant words used to express the concepts in our list
Using a large dataset of user generated content in vernacular Spanish, we analyse the diatopic structure of modern day Spanish language at the lexical level
Summary
Language is the most characteristic trait of human communication but takes on many heterogeneous forms. Based on the answers provided, linguistic atlases are generated that are naturally limited in scope and subject to the particular choice of locations and informants and perhaps not completely free of unwanted influences from the dialectologist. Another approach is the use of mass media corpora which provide a wealth of information on language usage but suffer from the tendency of media and newspapers to use standard norms (the ‘‘BBC English’’ for example) [3] that limits their usefulness for the study of informal local variations
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