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This paper is included in the framework of the research project Estudio del léxico en el habla del santarroseño (Primera etapa). After choosing the countryside as the first vocabulary domain and on the basis of the matrix survey, we have selected the most significant questions related to our search: which is the basic lexicon that freshmen at the Profesorado y Licenciatura en Letras at the UNLPam have in relation to the countryside. The corpus consists of 30 surveys carried out in 2009 amongst these students. On this first study, we will describe the words provided by the survey participants and we will analyze their recurrence. These objectives aim at identifying which words are more significant to our youngsters in relation to the countryside, and transversely, they will allow us to get closer to the levels of domain and knowledge that students have of an area that is supposedly constitutive of the pampean identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The starting point of our investigation is the hypothesis that the non-standard Patagonian variety is made up not only of phonological, grammatical and lexical features, but also of oral interaction patterns which are essentially different from those used in urban societies. Therefore the purpose of this paper is to investigate everyday conversations from a socio-pragmatic approach, in order to give account of the relationship between this form of verbal exchange and the socio-cultural context where its production occurs. Our analysis is based on data collected during a field research carried on in two Mapuche-Tehuelche communities of the province of Chubut, in the Argentine Patagonia: Blancuntre and Cerro Centinela. Recorded spontaneous dialogues and personal interviews form the Corpus of analysis. The study focuses on the following structural constituents of conversation: pauses, silences and redundancy, within the frame of a theoretical pattern that allows us to identify a group of socio-demographic variables, which constraints the interacting behavior of the members of the investigated communities. The analysis of the collected corpus shows the relationship between conversational structures and strategies; and the Amerindian culture, where the interaction develops. The conclusion is that cultural diversity clearly emerges from the pragmatic level of language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]