The diversity of the Spanish language: A comparative study on the material of the Spanish language and its varieties spoken in Latin American countries

Abstract

The authors of this article aimed to point out the differences in lexis and grammatical constructions between the varieties of Spanish spoken in Spain and Latin American countries. In order to obtain the most authoritative material the authors used the answers of respondents from six countries: Argentina, Chile, Spain, Colombia, Mexico, and Venezuela. They made this choice because of the mentioned countries’ geographical location as well as the anticipated influence of other languages due to migration processes. This allowed the authors to show a lot of variety in the respondents’ choice of specific words and sentence constructions. The article also discusses the voseo phenomenon, the rioplatense dialect, and phonetic differences between them. They demonstrated the lexical, grammatical, and sociolinguistic differences between the varieties of Spanish.