Voices in Contact: Spanish in the Peruvian Amazon

Jara M.; Napurí A. · Letras (Peru) (2025) · DOI: 10.30920/letras.96.144.1

Resumen

This dossier brings together research dedicated to the study of Peruvian Amazonian Spanish, a set of varieties shaped by contact with indigenous languages and profound socio-political transformations. The works compiled here address phonetic, phonological, morphosyntactic, and discursive phenomena, as well as linguistic attitudes and ideologies, with the aim of characterising the structural and social complexity of these regional dialects. Through methodologies that combine acoustic analysis, spontaneous speech corpora, sociolinguistic interviews, variationist tools, and critical analysis of multimodal discourse, the studies document grammatical innovations and levelling processes typical of bilingualism, as well as practices of identity resistance in the face of the hegemony of standard Spanish. The volume emphasises that Amazonian varieties are not deviations from the standard, but fully functional systems whose configuration reveals dynamic processes of interlinguistic convergence, typological substrate and social agency. It also highlights the urgency of documenting these varieties in the face of the effects of standardisation and linguistic discrimination, as well as the need to integrate community perspectives into research. Overall, the dossier contributes to raising awareness of the linguistic richness of the Amazon and provides a solid framework for future research that articulates variation, contact and linguistic justice.

Instituciones: Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos