EL ESPAÑOL Y SUS VARIEDADES

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze how the three internal linguistic differences proposed by Coseriu (1981) are related to each other: diatopic differences (dialectal differences), diastratic differences (language levels) and diaphasic differences (language styles). In this particular case, Spanish is studied. According to Lope Blanch (1992:320), “peninsular and insular Spanish varieties†and “American Spanish varieties†will be studied. Spanish spoken in Madrid, La Rioja and the Canary Islands belong into the first variety group while Spanish spoken in Argentina, Mexico and Cuba belong into the second variety group. A syntactic, morphological, lexical and phonological analysis of each Spanish variety will be carried out together with an analysis of social factors such as sex, age, social class and level of instruction which identify speakers as members of a particular social group. Moreover, colloquial and formal registers will be evaluated in relation to the characteristics of the situation or the communicative context.