Nitsuj Nogara

The Dialectal Variations, Social Factors, and Phenomenon of The Letter /s/ In New Mexican Spanish

Justin Aragón

Abstract: There are three sounds commonly heard in New Mexico’s Spanish for the phoneme /s/: the sibilant [s], the aspirate [h], and total elision [Æ]. Since Spanish in New Mexico has had contact with many different dialects of Spanish, the phoneme /s/ has been used very differently within different groups of New Mexico. Sociolinguistics have played a role in documenting the variation of /s/ because it includes the culture, dynamics of the society, and the location. All of these variables contribute to the overall common usage of the letter /s/ and determines which dialect of /s/ people use. This research paper will look at the data gathered from rapid and anonymous surveys of dialects, social stratifications, and phenomes of /s/ within local stores in Albuquerque, NM, which serve the Mexican community and determine if New Mexico Spanish follows the pronunciation tendencies in Northern Mexico. This data will be evaluated to determine which variation of the phoneme /s/ is most commonly used by residents of New Mexico.

1. Introduction

Albuquerque, NM will be the location of this study and the stores that serve the Mexican community will be used for data collection. The assumption that these stores create social and stylistic stratifications of the employees is key for this study because it provides a way to compare the aspirations of /s/ of NM and Mexico ³. The liklihood of aspirating/reducing the phoneme /s/ in New Mexico will be used to determine and identify the variations of Spanish in New Mexico vs. Mexico (Northern Mexico).

The Spanish dialects and varieties are all different depending on the dialect area being studied. Pronunciation of the phoneme /s/ in this paper will only look at 3 of the variables, /s/à [s, h, Æ]. The 3 types are: apico-alveolar fricative, [s] (occurs in Spain), laminal alveolar grooved fricative, [h] (occurs in Latin America/Spanish America), and apical dental grooved fricative, [Æ] (Eastern Andalusia)⁴. /s/à /h/ is called the aspiration (reduction), which losses or weakens the /s/ in Mexico and will be compared to the varieties of /s/ used in Albuquerque, NM. An example of a word that is aspirated, resbalarà [refalar] is mentioned by Lipski (1984) and states that the reduction of /s/ is part of the Andalusian heritage, and the pronunciation of /s/ has been spread to different dialects due to global pressures ⁴. Since places like Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Peru, and Paraguay are considered “highlands”, the spoken Spanish is said to have much less aspiration of the /s/ than Spain, where /s/ à /s/. Past research shows that the aspiration/reduction of /s/ in Mexico is less than New Mexico ^2,3,4, so data collected at local stores should provide some interesting insight. Although there has been ten folds of research done of the aspiration of /s/ not as much has been done on Spanish in New Mexico. The variation of /s/ in Albuquerque, NM could be an indicator of articulatory inheritance from either Andalucía or Madrid during colonial times ⁴.

The study conducted a rapid and anonymous survey regarding the plural /s/ with employees of local supermarkets, which was similar to Labov’s methodology ³. Assuming we will be speaking to workers that cater to the Mexican community in Albuquerque, NM, the data will provide the significant uses of each variation of /s/, and prove the hypothesis that New Mexico Spanish aspirates the /s/ more than Mexico. General information of the worker such as: gender, approximate age, the number of questions asked, and reduction of the /s/ was used to support the findings. Research by Brown and Lipski on the weakening of /s/ and the dependence of syllable positions will not be studied in this paper because we will only be studying the plural use of /s/ ^1,4. Brown’s work took a detailed look into New Mexico Spanish and compared the reduction of the syllable-final /s/ with three different types of Spanish ¹. Brown states that “the phonological reduction in New Mexico does not seem elevated…does not seem that /s/ reduction is “extreme” in New-Mexican Spanish” ¹. This data will provide information on the dialectal variations, social factors, and the reduction of /s/ in New Mexico.

2. Methodology

Collecting the variation of the phoneme /s/ in use was a very simple process. Students and myself went to stores in Albuquerque, NM geared towards the Mexican population, which were: Pro’s Ranch Market, El Herradero, Helen’s Bakery, and El Mesquite. Following a previous methodology conducted by Labov, the customer (student) went to a local store, and asked workers what a particular product was called. Keeping in mind that we needed the workers to respond with the plural version of the product to determine the aspiration of /s/, the customer would grab a item and ask, “What are these?” (Items that were not local or had a higher level of curiosity were picked to make sure the workers would not catch on to the study). An example of the conversation would go like this:

Customer: “Disculpe. Que son estos?”

Employee: “Esos son manzanas” (Seria 1A en la hoja de codificación)

Customer: “Mande Ud.?” “Puede repetir?” ECT. (Que usen su Buena educación)

Employee: “Manzanas” (Sería 2A)

After the conversation, the “customer” filled in the data listing the store, product that was used for the question, gender of employee, age of employee, response for both questions (1A and 2A), and marked yes or no if they aspirated/reduced the final-syllable /s/ in first or second responses in the collection tool (Appendix 1). (It is important to note that the survey/customer looked at reduction vs. retention of /s/ and that both [h] and [Æ] were considered reductions and no distinctions between the two were made). Each student and myself repeated this with at least 8 people in the store of our choice. By recording the use of the plural /s/, the data can compare the general aspiration of /s/ without the need to analyze the dependence of syllable/word construction in a specific context, which can then be compared to Lipski and Brown. A total of 406 tokens were used in this study and provided the needed social significance and casual interactions needed to analyze this study. The ability to complete this study without telling the employees at the store what we needed was crucial because it allowed us to record the “natural” use of their spoken Spanish, “use of it in the desired context, the desired order, and with the desired contrast of style.” ³. A multivariable analysis was conducted using GOLDVARB to analyze the data, make sure all variables were accounted for, and retain the data’s original significance.

3. Data & Figures

By employing variationist methodology to the data from a rapid and anonymous survey, it allowed the examination of overall rates of reduction of the plural /s/, as well as the social factors that contribute to its overall reduction. The general figures collected by the data were very interesting because they showed that only 24% of the employees at the Mexican community stores aspirated the /s/ (Table 1). There were a total of 406 tokens taken (N) in this study and all 5 factors were analyzed in separate tables.

Table 1. General Figures
	Reduction?
	Yes	No	Total N
Total N	96	310	406
%	23.6	76.4

When the “customer” asked the employee the question the first time there was a 28% probability that reduction of the /s/ would occur, while the second time the reduction of the /s/ dropped to 17.8% (Table 2).

Table 2. First vs. Second time
	Reduction?
	Yes	No	N	%
1a Time N	65	167	232	57.1
%	28.0	72.0

2a Time N	31	143	174	42.9
%	17.8	82.2

The gender of employee is very interesting because it seemed to have a big significance if the word was reduced in general. If the employee was a male the probability of the word being reduced was 33% vs. 11.5 % with a female (Table 3).

Table 3. Gender of Employee
	Reduction?
	Yes	No	N	%
Male N	75	148	223	54.9
%	33.6	66.4

Female N	21	162	183	45.1
%	11.5	88.5

Looking at the data for the approximate age of the employee, the data showed a significant difference in reduction of the /s/. If the employee was younger than 30 years old /s/ was reduced at a rate of 28.9% vs. the 15.9% for employees over the age of 30 (Table 4).

Table 4. Approximate Age of Employee
	Reduction?
	Yes	No	N	%
More than 30 Years N	26	138	164	40.4
%	15.9	84.1

Less than 30 Years N	70	172	242	59.6
%	28.9	71.1

The significance of the gender of the “customer” only varied by 1.3%, suggesting that this variable did not have any effect on the study (Table 5).

Table 5. Gender of “customer”
	Reduction?
	Yes	No	N	%
Female N	71	225	296	72.9
%	24.0	76.0

Male N	25	85	110	27.1
%	22.7	77.3

This last table shows the groups of significant factors for the reduction of /s/. The table provides the range of the three most significant factor groups and the % of the total data for the reduction of /s/. In the next section the relevance of the data will be analyzed in much more detail.

Table 6. Groups of significant factors for the reduction of /s/
N = 406; Input: .20
Overall rate: 24%
	Prob	% Reduction	N	% Total Data
Gender of Employee
Male	.65	33.6%	75	55%
Female	.32	11.5%	21	45%
Range	.33

Approximate Age
+30	.58	29%	70	60%
-30	.38	16%	26	40%
Range	.20

First vs. Second time
First	.57	28%	65	57%
Second	.40	18%	31	43%
Range	.17

Log likelihood = -199.315
Significance, p = 0.01

4. Discussion

This study did find evidence that: dialectal variations, gender and age differences, and variations of the phoneme /s/ effect casual spoken Spanish. Looking at past research by Lipski, it is justified to say that the phonological change of sà/s/, /h/, and /Æ/ has reached a point in New Mexico, that identifying the differences is aspiration/reduction is very difficult to do in New Mexican Spanish ⁴. With this being said, the study did not look at the factors of word-initial, syllable-initial, or syllable factors in the words/items that were used in the stores by the “customers” because New Mexico has been in contact with a variety of different dialects. By only recording the syllable-final/aspiration of /s/ the data was able to get a very general comparison of the phoneme /s/ in Albuquerque, NM vs. Northern Mexico’s Spanish dialect.

· Dialectal Variations and The Variations of The Phoneme /s/

Results in the data show that employees working in Mexican stores which supply the community have a 24% of reducing of the /s/ in speech. It is important to remember that this study is assuming the workers are of Mexican heritage and the general population in Albuquerque, NM has socially stratified these stores, as “Mexican” ³. This data collected is very different when compared to Brown’s data on Word-Final reduction in NM, where the data showed /s/ was reduced at a rate of 57% (Table 1 (Brown)) ¹.

Looking more closely at Brown’s data vs. (Table 1) in this study, it has a 33% higher probability that the /s/ will be reduced. This is telling me that NM’s Spanish speakers tend to favor reduction, like Andalusia and Uruguay, but the employees of the Mexican stores follow the dialect tendencies of Northern Mexico and aspirate the /s/ less than the Andalusia’s dialect. One important thing to keep in mind is that the study, is assuming that the employees are in a social network that is defined by their employment and work in a store that primarily caters to the Mexican population in Albuquerque, NM. This being said Brown says “New Mexican Spanish does not follow the same /s/ articulation parameters that other well-studied varieties do” ¹. Since the dialect varieties of Spanish in NM have not been studied as much as other areas, it is difficult to prove, that Spanish in Albuquerque’s Mexican “geared” community stores do not favor or sustain the dialect used in Northern Mexico. This is not to say that the results in this study are not correct but infer that the numbers have a correlation to Lipski’s idea that dialect variations have made it difficult to differentiate them.

· Social Factors

Social factors in this study needed to be very simple but very direct. The stores that were used in this study were: Pro’s Ranch Market, El Herradero, Helen’s Bakery, and El Mesquite, which are stores assumed to be supporting the Mexican community in Albuquerque, NM. The idea behind this assumption to correlate to the data it must be assumed that the employees are also of Mexican heritage to further help customers in the store with the Mexican products. Quoting Labov, “The evidence presented here indicates that the stores are objectively differentiated in a fixed order, and that jobs in these stores are evaluated by employees in that order”, which is the same ideology used in this study to determine the stores that would be used ⁴. Looking at (Table 6) the three main factor groups for the reduction in /s/ are analyzed by VARBRUL.

The gender of the employee suggests that it played a very key role for when the /s/ was reduced. Males reduced /s/ at a rate of 33.6%, with a (N) value of 75, and were 55% of the total data. Females only reduced /s/ at a rate of 11.5%, with a (N) value of 21, and were 45% of the total data. The total range of probability was 0.33 and was the highest of the three main factors. Since men reduced the /s/ 22.1% more than the female employees it can be said evidence in the study shows a difference of speech between gender lines ^5,8. Labov and Silva-Corvalán both agree that females are more conservative than men, which represents the data in this study ^3,7. It is also possible that the female employees at these stores have a higher probability of being a native of Northern Mexico because they have preserved the dialect from Northern Mexico. These changes can also be directly related to Labov’s finding that people introduced to the communities’ language may shift from above (dominant/upper social class) or from below (overly prestigious), which is introduced by the social stratification ³.

The approximate age of the employee, over or under the age of 30, was recorded by the “customer” and had a probability range of 0.20 (Table 6). Employees over 30 years old had a reduction rate of 29% for /s/, (N) value of 164, and were 60% of the total data. Younger than 30 years reduced /s/ at a rate of 16%, (N) value of 242, and were 40% of the total data (Table 4). According to the data, employees under the age of 30, aspirated/reduced the /s/ 30% of the time and had the more casual dialect. Brown’s data (Table 1 (Brown)) suggests that 57% of New Mexicans aspirate/reduce the word-final /s/ compared to the employees 30%. Brown includes another table that compares reduction in NM vs Mexico, which is very interesting (Table 2 (Brown)). Looking at the word-final, phrase-final data

it seems that Mexico reduces the /s/ much more than NM, and the employees would be considered to use reduction tendencies from NM (since both ages are <30%). This would diminish the idea that Mexico aspirates less than NM if we were only to look at that data. Brown does say that you must look at all the data for NM vs. Mexico because NM is higher in every area except word-final ¹. So are the employees considered to have New Mexican or North Mexican tendencies in reduction of the /s/? Even though this factor is significant in the data it is hard to pinpoint what exactly age contributes.

The final factor group that had a significant value was the first vs. second time the question was asked by the “customer”. This had a range of 0.17 with the first time asked having a reduction of 28% and the second time dropping down to 18%. These results (Table 6) were in direct relation to the study by Labov ³. There was a 10.2% decrease in reduction in /s/ when the employee was asked the question once more. I conducted this survey at Pro’s Ranch Market and did not have problems with the employees answering questions 1A or 2A. Graduate student X stated “A problem I ran into was people trying to give me the generic noun form, like el pescado- I had to "force" them to use plural with priming” which may have skewed some of the data because the second pronunciation was forced out of them⁹. This is only crucial to the data if all the studies conducted where like this but in my study, the employees’ pronounced the word in plural form every time. The employees’ did tend to pronounce the word much slower for 2A than 1A which did match the casual and emphatic aspiration or reduction of the /s/ in the data ³.

Overall this study was very conclusive and provided a great deal of insight on the phoneme /s/ in Albuquerque, NM. Data reveals that dialectal variations and social factors do affect the variations of the phoneme /s/ and provided 5 factors that induce the weakening of the /s/. The hypothesis that Spanish in Albuquerque’s socially stratified Mexican stores would be higher than Northern Mexican Spanish was correct. There was a reduction of /s/ at a rate of 24% but that was much less than data done by Brown, which showed nearly 60% of people speaking New Mexican Spanish reduced the /s/ ¹. This leaves the possibility that the employees in these stores are from Northern Mexico (Mexico) and have continued to use the traditional dialect, which does not reduce the /s/ as much as NM, or these employees have increased their reductions in /s/ because of the contact of dialects in Albuquerque. If further research were done, it would be suggested that a more personal look at the employees’ origin and living situations be determined, so the data can use the employees’ dialects and see if those dialects are being integrated or retaining the dialect of NM or Mexico.

REFRENCES

1. Brown, Esther L. 2005. New Mexico Spanish: Insight into the Variable Reduction of “La ehe inihial” (/s/). Hispania, Vol. 88, No. 4, 813-824.

2. Cotton, Eleanor Greet; John M. Sharp (1988). Spanish in the Americas. Georgetown University Press.

3. Labov, W. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics.

4. Lipski, John M. 1994. Latin American Spanish. London: Longmans.

5. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1989. Sociolingüística. Teoría y análisis. Madrid: Alhambra.

6. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 1990. Current Issues in Studies in Language Contact. Hispania 73: 162-177.

7. Silva-Corvalán, Carmen. 2001. Sociolinguistica y pragmática del español. Washington DC: Georgetown University Press.

8. Alcázar-Hernández. 2009. Technological Applications to Linguistic Research: A Corpus Analysis of Frequency Adverbials.

9. Person X. 2012. Pros Ranch Experiencia. http://swspan-primavera2012.blogspot.com/2012/03/pros-ranch-experiencia.html

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The Dialectal Variations, Social Factors, and Phenomenon of The Letter /s/ In New Mexican Spanish

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