Arabismos en el campo semantico de los oficios: De la competicion a la perdida lexica

This dissertation is focused on socio-historical approaches to language change and lexical loss, particularly those connected with standardization, language policy and ideology. The study sheds light on the sociolinguistic effects that language standardization mechanisms have played on the processes of lexical selection and the formation of the "active" modern Spanish lexicon. The project investigates the trajectory of (partially) synonymous pairs, one of Arabic origin and the other of Latin origin, from the semantic field of professions and trades.;Chapter 1 studies the processes of lexical loss and replacement. Chapter 2 traces the influence of the standard variety and the ideologies of the main Spanish writers from 15th to 19th century. The testimony of the writers sheds light on the relevance of the attitudes of languages users and their ideologies. The main focus is the relationship between loss of Arabisms and speaker attitudes. Chapter 3 focuses on the detail study of the lexical pairs: alfayate vs. sastre, alfajeme vs. barbero, alarife vs. arquitecto and albeitar vs. veterinario . The investigation leads to two principal conclusions. First, some Arabic lexical items were lost due to an increase in prejudice against Arabic-speaking groups (mozarabes, mudejares, moriscos and Jews) which in turn led to the rejection of those lexical items which were stereotypically associated with those groups. Second, the introduction of European modernizing discourses and relevant lexical items (especially in the Enlightenment) dominated traditional Hispanic discourse systems of the profession and trades. It was a conscious top-down effort to privilege certain forms of knowledge and discourse and related lexical items. In the same way, the choice of certain lexical items and the ideologies of language standardization form part of this new hierarchization of knowledge, discourse and lexicon.