Current trends among Ecuadorian dialects: Insights from Internet interviews

Abstract

The dialectal landscape of Spanish found within the boundaries of Ecuador is diverse. However, the descriptive research that has investigated dialectal features that characterize the different dialects found in Ecuador is somewhat outdated considering the dynamic nature of language. This study takes a first step in investigating current dialectal trends across many Ecuadorian Spanish dialects. The speech of subjects in ten video interviews collected from the Internet representing a wide range of Ecuadorian Spanish dialect zones was analyzed. Phonological, morphological, syntactic, and lexical features were observed and compared to dialectal features from different dialectal zones reported in previous research. Differences were found between the older generations and the younger generations across dialects. The older generations tended to display characteristics reported in previous research while the younger speakers showed differences. These differences are taken as evidence of a dialectal convergence processes underway among the different dialects of Ecuadorian Spanish.