El idioma de los argentinos: una lectura sociolingüística

Abstract

Abstract: This article analyzes the evolution of the Argentine language as a reflection of the country’s social, political and cultural transformations, from the nineteenth century to the present day. Drawing on a heterogeneous corpus of essays, literary works and cultural productions, it examines the major linguistic controversies of the nineteenth century (Alberdi, Bello, Sarmiento), the emergence of hybrid phenomena such as cocoliche and lunfardo in the context of mass immigration, and the tensions between norm and usage that run through the history of Rioplatense Spanish. The article shows how language constitutes a space of symbolic struggle in which identities, belongings and alterities are at stake, from the voseo to L-Gante’s cumbia 420. The language of Argentines thus appears as a territory of memory, resistance and permanent reinvention. Keywords: Sociolinguistics, Argentine language, Lunfardo, Voseo, Identity, Immigration.