Oral spanish in a contact area

This is a dialectal variation study of the Spanish language spoken in a Southern area of Chile, a dialectal variety whish is characterized by its: a) colateral geographical nature vis a vis the urban centers; b) constant contact with mapudungun (the language of the mapuche people). The variations are observed in oral texts –essentially narrative ones– taken directly from adult peasants who are either Spanish monolinguals or Spanish-mapudungun bilinguals. Our analysis while including different levels of linguistic structures has facilitated the verifying of some form usages coming from mapudungun, as well a fi nding similarities and differences between both groups of speakers.