Las actitudes hacia el uso de anglicismos en el habla coloquial : Un estudio sociolingüístico comparativo entre hombres y mujeres de Tucumán, Argentina

Abstract: The anglicism is a global phenomenon with significant impact on the Spanish language lexicon. The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of a group of informants towards this phenomenon in the region of Tucumán, Argentina, and if their attitude changes according to gender. Ten women and ten men were chosen to answer a questionnaire in which the responses were analysed and discussed with a sociolinguistic perspective. The questionnaire uses the Likert Scale based on closed questions. In the questionnaire, the study group expresses levels of agreement or disagreement towards the use of English loan words in colloquial Spanish and with the anglicism phenomenon in general. The results show that women are slightly more positive towards the use of anglicisms and that men have a neutral attitude. This shows that women tend to use the prestigious form of a linguistic variable. One explanation for this is to gain status, which is otherwise denied to a female speaker, due to gender inequality in the community. The results are compared with the results of a similar study of Spanish speakers in Sa nJuan, Argentina. In contrast to our study, the San Juan study results indicate negative attitudes to the use of anglicism.