Abstract:

Language is the main means that human beings have to express themselves and, therefore, it is an element that is directly linked to life in society and communication. However, the language is not homogeneous, since in the case of Spanish we find that in Latin America and Spain there is a wide range of dialects that make up different varieties of the same language. These are different dialect varieties distributed throughout Latin America from Mexico to Argentina, in addition to peninsular Spanish. With this linguistic landscape, we face a challenge when it comes to receiving and deciphering information that is not localized in our area. Although all varieties of Spanish are understood and communication is possible, we must not ignore the fact that there are certain idioms, colloquial expressions, and jargon typical of each region. In addition, it must be added that geographical limits are not always synonymous with limits in the distribution of the language, even in the same country, as in the case of Spain, more than one variety can coexist, or even in another country the use of another language emerged, as a result of the linguistic and social contact of its speakers, as in the case of Spanish in the United States. In this sense, the present study focuses on the most outstanding features that occur in the Spanish language spoken by different Hispanic communities in the United States (linguistic integration and contact), which reveal that it is the second most important language within the country (spoken at home by a population of around 30 million and which is a hallmark of 13.3% of the total US population). Spanish speakers in the United States are primarily Hispanics of Cuban origin in Florida, those of Puerto Rican origin in New York and Illinois, and traditional Hispanics in New Mexico and Arizona. Therefore, it can be said that the United States is the second Hispanic country in the world, after Mexico. Spanish speakers are between 7 and 10 times more numerous than speakers of other languages, except English. Likewise, this paper highlights the key factor in determining the systematic mismatches between dialects of American Spanish and contemporary Latin American dialects that coexist in the United States. In other words, importance is given to the language domain at the idiolectal level, as well as the degree of sociolinguistic integration of the various Hispanic communities. That is, the existence of vestigial Spanish speakers is emphasized, that is, the semi-speakers of Spanish or those people in whose families there has been an idiomatic dislocation from Spanish to English in the course of one or two generations, and where there is competition unbalanced linguistics. On the other hand, it emphasizes a linguistic phenomenon of great importance for Hispanic dialectology: the existence of small Spanish-speaking groups, completely isolated from the large Spanish-speaking populations of the United States, and whose language contains archaic features as well as innovations, that are not at all like the more widely spread Spanish-American dialects. Finally, it talks about the interpretation of the American reality from the sociology of the language that revolves around the concept of diglossia, since there is the use of popular Spanish in ordinary life (also called Spanglish), at the same time that the media use international Spanish.

Keywords:

Linguistic diversity, pragmatics, dialect geography, diglossia, linguistic minorities, hispanic communities.