Semantic Variation of Peruvian Capital City Names: Literal, Metaphorical and Metonymical Meanings in Arequipa

Domínguez Chenguayen F.J.; Brossard Núñez I.P. · Second Language Learning and Teaching (2025) · DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-86154-3_4

Resumen

In this paper, we examine the semantic variation of the name of the capital Arequipa, capital of one of Peru's most densely populated regions, within the framework of the theoretical approach known as cognitive linguistics, along with some observations from corpus linguistics. From a total of 609 expressions extracted from headlines and online news articles using natural language processing techniques (Python programming language), we have identified three classes of semantic variants (or meanings) related to the linguistic form Arequipa (literal, metaphorical, and metonymic). Our results indicate that while the literal variant (the prototypical meaning of Arequipa) can be contextualized in certain precise grammatical constructions, the other variants (metaphorical and metonymic) cannot. © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2025.

Instituciones: Universidad Peruana de Ciencias Aplicadas; Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú; Universidad Tecnológica del Perú; Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología