MARCAS FONÉTICAS DE LA ORALIDAD EN LA LENGUA DE LOS CHATS: ELISIONES Y EPÉNTESIS CONSONÁNTICAS

Abstract

An analysis of phenomena related to consonantal deletion and epenthesis in a corpus of around 140.000 words collected during Augustus 2002 in the chat room #12_13_14_15_años (IRC-Hispano network) shows that the spelling used in this medium is closely related to features which are characteristic of spoken colloquial Spanish. Initial deletions are mainly found in greetings, expressions of thanks, elements which are closely related to the conversation and in certain verbal forms. Deletions in the middle of a word found in spellings reflect the desappearance of the dental approximant in past participles ending in -ado and in other forms which are usually considered as colloquial. In word-final position, the spelling indicates the elision of the dental approximant, the alveolar approximant and the alveolar fricative in the spoken forms. Epenthesis is infrequent, occurring in well-known forms which are clearly identified as deviant from the norm. On the overall, it is confirmed that, as been already pointed out in the literature, spelling transgressions reveal, also at the phonetic level, that the chat can be adequately described as the written expression of a spoken text.