The name of the Spanish language according to Spanish-speaking subjects from Santiago de Chile

Abstract

We show partial results of the project Linguistic Identity and Attitudes in Spanish-speaking Latin America, which reveal the preferences of Spanish-speaking subjects from Santiago de Chile regarding the name of their own language: español (Spanish), castellano (Castilian), and others. In order to collect the data we have applied a direct survey to 400 subjects from this city, grouped according to sex, age and socio-economic status. We deem normative prestige as the main factor explaining the answers of an important number of the interviewees. These say that they use mainly español (Spanish), while it is reasonable to assume that they use castellano (Castilian) in their vernacular speech, according to various sources.