abstract: Spanish is a pluricentric language spoken within the linguistic continuum with high variation. The understanding of the attitudes towards such variation with regard to its geography (diatopic variation) is key to capacitate its students and speakers as a foreign language to successfully communicate in changing and emerging transnational contexts. The research of linguistic attitudes is a topic that has traditionally been approached in Western contexts, with scholars requiring alternative research environments to provide a richer picture of this construct. China, given its steady growth in the number of Spanish as a foreign language students and its current role in the global, transnational arena, becomes a research environment where the study of linguistic attitudes gain even more relevance. Based on this reality, this study seeks to unveil the attitudes towards diatopic variation and towards the five most widely spoken diatopic varieties of Spanish (i.e., Mexico, Argentina, the United States, Spain, and Colombia) in Chinese students of initial level (n = 95) and their professors (n = 16). In doing so, this study collected data through (1) empirically validated questionnaires on attitudes towards diatopic variation, (2) perceptual dialectology tasks and (3) interviews. The main findings of this research showed the presence of positive attitudes towards diatopic variation by students and teachers. Such attitudes can be explained in light of their previous sociolinguistic knowledge and their previous experience as learners of a second pluricentric language. Regarding the attitudes toward the most spoken varieties, this study showed that the variety associated with Spain was the best known by the observed students and teachers, and received the categorization of prestige variety by students. Teachers did not show affective or status assessments toward any of the diatopic varieties. Further analysis of these results, based on ethnolinguistic vitality , and the levels of familiarity of students/teachers with each variety, suggests that teaching expansive proposals from initial levels can provide a more inclusive view of the diatopic variation of the Spanish language in class. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Linguistics and Applied Linguistics 2019

El propósito de este estudio es investigar las actitudes lingüísticas de tres grupos de profesores procedentes de España, Suecia y América Latina, hacia las variedades lingüísticas del español en la enseñanza del español como lengua extranjera (ELE) en Suecia.Los resultados, basados en un cuestionario con un grupo de informantes relativamente limitado, muestran que una clara mayoría opina que se debe enseñar tanto el español de Europa y de América Latina. Ninguno de los informantes tiene preferencia hacia el español de América Latina, mientras que una minoría considerable se inclina por un español de España. Esta actitud positiva hacia la variedad peninsular es más marcada entre profesores de origen español y entre los profesores que enseñan en el nivel primario en las escuelas suecas.En el cuestionario también se ha comparado la incorporación de aspectos gramaticales, lexicales y fonológicos. Se ha considerado que el grupo de informantes no es suficiente amplio como para poder generalizar los resultados. / The purpose of this study is to investigate three groups of teachers from Spain, Sweden and Latin America regarding their attitudes towards the varieties of Spanish in the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language (ELE) in Sweden.The results, based on a questionnaire with a relatively limited group of informants, show that a big majority of informants believe that both the Spanish of Spain and Latin American Spanish should be taught. None of the informants had the preference for teaching Latin American Spanish, while a considerable minority was inclined towards Spanish from Spain. This positive attitude towards the peninsular variety is more recognized among teachers of Spanish origin and among the teachers who teaches at the primary school level in Sweden.Grammatical, lexical and phonological aspects have also been compared in the questionnaire but the number of informants in each group was too small for the results to be generalized.

Cette thèse de doctorat étudie l'utilisation discursive des régionalismes, ou diatopismes, du français en alliant les perspectives de la linguistique variationniste et de l'analyse du discours. L'étude fournit un développement conceptuel, terminologique et méthodologique détaillé en matière de diatopie et des contraintes qui pèsent sur l'usage de diatopismes dans le discours. Elle explicite en particulier la méthode d'analyse appliquée en termes différentiels, pour la description des diatopismes et l'interprétation des sources et des enquêtes de terrain menée par l'auteure, ainsi que pour l'analyse du discours. À partir de l'analyse des procédés discursifs qui présentent les diatopismes en autonymie (les mises en relief) et de leur distribution discursive, un nouveau paradigme sociopragmatique permet d'interpréter les caractéristiques pragmatiques et sociolinguistiques des diatopismes dans le discours. Le corps de l'analyse est présenté sous la forme d'articles dictionnairiques, complétant un modèle lexicographique différentiel de rubriques qui sont consacrées aux aspects discursifs et sociopragmatiques des diatopismes étudiés. L'analyse philologique porte sur tous les diatopismes qui sont mis en relief dans l'ensemble des vingt-six romans grand public du Vendéen Yves Viollier, publiés de 1972 à 2009, et qui appartiennent à la communauté sociolinguistique de ce dernier. L'étude montre que les mises en relief, tributaires de l'orientation réaliste des romans étudiés, sont relativement rares, et que la création de l'ethos du 'régional' passe dans ceux-ci par un choix original de diatopismes, et non par des clichés largement partagés. / This doctoral dissertation studying the use of French regionalisms, or diatopicisms, in literature, is situated in the fields of variationist linguistics and of discourse analysis. The study offers a detailed description of the concepts and current terminology in the recent discipline of Francophone differential linguistics as well as in the related branches of French discourse analysis. It pays particular attention to the methods applied in the identification of diatopic elements and the interpretation of existing sources – completed by field studies conducted by the author – as well as for an appropriate discourse analysis of diatopicisms in literature. Developing a new sociopragmatic paradigm, the author analyses the strategies that present meta-linguistically highlighted diatopicisms and their textual distribution in order to interpret what these procedures say obliquely about the diatopicisms in terms of their pragmatic and sociolinguistic characteristics. The large corpus analysis is presented in the form of dictionary articles, based on a model developed in French differential lexicography, and enriched by sociopragmatic sections. The author analyses all highlighted diatopicisms in the twenty-six popular novels of Yves Viollier which belong to the latter's sociolinguistic community (Vendée). The study shows that the strategies highlighting diatopicisms in the analysed novels – published from 1972 to 2009, realist and partly regionalist – are relatively rare. The ethos of the novelist's home region is partly created by the use of diatopicisms – but this is achieved through original choices, rather than largely shared stereotypes.

En Brasil, la variación lingüística diatópica adquiere relevancia en la enseñanza de español como lengua extranjera, debido a la situación geográfica del país entre Hispanoaméricana y a causa de sus relaciones económicas y culturales, por una parte, con los demás países latinoamericanos, cuya lengua oficial es el español, y por otra, con España. El presente trabajo se centra en el estudio de las actitudes y creencias lingüísticas hacia las variedades diatópicas del español por parte de estudiantes universitarios brasileños de ELE, ya que dichas actitudes y creencias desempeñan un importante papel en la motivación que tienen por aprender, y por ende, en su grado de adquisición de la lengua extranjera. Además de estudiar sistemáticamente las percepciones y las actitudes en relación con las variedades del español, este estudio busca investigar concretamente las actitudes hacia las formas de tratamiento en español (tú, vos, usted, vosotros y ustedes), ya que suponen realizaciones lingüísticas ciertamente variables, tanto geográfica como estilísticamente. Asimismo, contemplamos analizar si existen relaciones entre la proficiencia lingüística de los encuestados, su perfil académico y el contacto que tienen con hablantes de variedades de español y las actitudes generales que declaran tener hacia tales variedades. En base a datos empíricos, consideramos las implicaciones que tienen los resultados para la enseñanza de ELE en un contexto en el que el español se concibe como una lengua pluricéntrica. Para investigar estas variables, utilizamos un cuestionario, que suministramos a 60 estudiantes que cursan español en el Centro de Ensino de Línguas de la Universidade Estadual de Campinas y que, además, realizan sus estudios en esta misma universidad. A través de técnicas de observación de actitudes tanto directas como indirectas, y mediante el estudio cuantitativo y cualitativo de las variables que analizamos, concluimos que existe una prevalencia por las variedades latinoamericanas con respecto a la variedad peninsular por parte de los estudiantes brasileños de ELE, lo cual supone un contraste con investigaciones previas realizadas en este ámbito. En el caso de las actitudes hacia las formas de tratamiento, los resultados de la investigación muestran que no existe una correspondencia de estas actitudes con las actitudes generales hacia las variedades diatópicas, puesto que la forma vos, característica exclusivamente de variedades latinoamericanas, se concibe como una de las menos utilizadas y una de las más innecesarias en el uso de la lengua española. / In Brazil, diatopic language variation gains importance in the teaching of Spanish as a foreign language, due to the geographic situation of Brazil between Spanish America and as a result of its economic and cultural relations, on the one hand, with the other Latin American countries, whose official language is Spanish, and on the other hand, with Spain. This paper focuses on the study of attitudes and linguistic beliefs towards diatopic varieties of Spanish by Brazilian students of Spanish as a Foreign Language (SFL), since such attitudes and beliefs play an important role in motivating students to learn, and therefore, in their acquisition level of the foreign language. Apart from systematically studying the perceptions and attitudes regarding the diatopic varieties of Spanish, this study seeks to specifically investigate attitudes towards the forms of address in Spanish (tú, vos, usted, vosotros and ustedes), because it is a variable linguistic topic, both geographically and stylistically. Furthermore, it studies the relationship between language proficiency of the students, their academic profile and their contact with speakers of varieties of Spanish as well as the general attitudes that they have towards Hispanic varieties. Based on empirical data, the discussion considers implications for teaching of SFL in a context where Spanish is conceived as a pluricentric language. To investigate all these variables, a questionnaire was distributed to 60 Brazilian students enrolled in the Spanish courses of the Language Learning Centre at the University of Campinas, who also follow their undergraduate and posgraduate studies at the same university. Using both direct and indirect observation techniques regarding attitudes, and quantitative and qualitative analysis, the paper concludes that there is a preference for the Latin American varieties compared to the Peninsular varieties amongst Brazilian students of Spanish. These results are different from the ones presented in previous research in this area. In the case of attitudes towards the forms of address in Spanish, the results show that there is no correspondence of these attitudes with the general attitudes towards diatopic varieties, since vos, which is exclusively characteristic of the Latin American varieties, is conceived as one of the least used and most unnecessary forms in Spanish.