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This paper tries to quantify the socioeconomic importance of seven phonetic characteristics (seseo, yeismo, /s/-aspiration, /x/-aspiration, /j/-assibilation, /r/-assibilation, and /n/-velarization) whose presence or absence allows distinguishing among twenty-four Spanish dialects. In order to accomplish this goal, we perform a least-square regression analysis to calculate "hedonic prices" for the abovementioned characteristics. The result is that the three more significant characteristics, which seem to operate as signs of a lower per-capita income, are seseo, /x/-aspiration and /r/-assibilation. The first of those characteristics keeps its statistical significance as a sociolinguistic marker when we restrict our analysis to the case of Spain, while /r/-assibilation keeps its statistical significance when we restrict our database to Colombian observations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Most technical terms in the field of Computer Science are English loanwords. English words are frequently preferred to Spanish terms because of different reasons, for instance, because of linguistic economy. In this paper, we reveal the results of an empirical study about the frequency of use of pure anglicisms. It has been carried out among students of Translating and Interpreting at the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria (Spain). The scope of use of lexical anglicisms by individuals in the analysed sample seems to be relatively high, but slightly lower than that of Computer Science students who participated in another preliminary partial study. Those students who provided more words for definitions also suggested more synonyms for the terms, and also used more English terms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]