Pontificia Universidad Catlica del Ecuador

School of linguistics
Name: Jefferson Imbaquingo

My linguistic identity

I have lived my whole life in Quito, Ecuador, so I think my accent is marked Quinteo and I

exhibit feature typically considered serrano and Quiteo. I tend to lengthen /s/ sounds and I do

not aspirate them like in the coast region. Nevertheless, my alveolar sounds (/r/) are soft and

not so stressed as one usually expects from an Andean person. Instead, it is an approximant

alveolar. I think it have acquired this sound since I have been raised in Quito where stressed -r

sounds are unprestigious as they are occasionally connected with rural and lower class society.

My register is context-dependent; I tend to speak more formally at work using better

vocabulary, vocalizing accurately and standardizing my language since I have to expose a good

public face. However, when I talk to my friends at work and university, my discourse flips to

another different register using slangs, etc. I have to admit that when I try to speak formally, I

feel it fake since I am forcing myself to produce it, and also my familiar context is not used to

this kind of talking. Both my parents are not from Quito, but from rural areas in Ecuador (Loja

and Ibarra); in spite this dialectal influence, I have not appealed to any of my parents discourse

and I have rejected any feature such as vocabulary, phonological features, etc.

Since I come from a middle class family, I have had the opportunity to education and this has

also influenced the way I express myself to other more educatedly. On the contrary, low-

income families may have no means or access to good education and this is certainly

influential. Nevertheless, I do share aspects from all walks of life(low and middle class), but

one tends to be prominent depending on the context.