This paper analyzes how Voces usadas en Chile, a lexicographical work written by Chilean lawyer and amateur linguist Aníbal Echeverría y Reyes and published in 1900, was received by his contemporaries, as it can be seen in a corpus of six critical texts dated between 1899 and 1905. Some of these critical texts were published in Chilean and American press and the rest in book form. Among the authors of these texts are Rodolfo Lenz, Miguel Luis Amunátegui Reyes and Fidelis del Solar, all of which played a significant role in the development of linguistics in Chile. We conclude that the reception of Echeverría's work was mainly negative because most commentators interpreted it as a prescriptive work whose normative function was impeded by fundamental faults. This interpretation can be explained in the context of the period of Chilean lexicography and linguistics to which these texts belong, the pre-scientific period, as Matus (1994) calls it, characterized by a strong normative interest. Among the most frequent criticisms, disagreements concerning the normative treatment of specific items stand out. We interpret this as a case of norm negotiation, which we deem inherent in a linguistic community undergoing a standardization process, as it was the case of late 19th century's Spanish-speaking Chile.
Keywords:
Voces usadas en Chile, Aníbal Echeverría y Reyes, linguistic historiography, language ideologies, metalexicography, dictionaries of provincialisms
Rojas Gallardo, D., & Avilés Vergara, T. (2012). The reception of Aníbal Echeverría y Reyes’s Voces usadas en Chile (1900) by his contemporaries. Boletín De Filología, 47(2), Pág. 149 –175. Retrieved from https://pedagogiaderecho.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/26549
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