The main aim of the paper is to offer a lexicological and semantic study of the Mexican prison slang at the end of the 19th century that appears in the text of the novel of manners La Chaquira (Belen por dentro), by Francisco Garcia Gonzalez, published in instalments in a Mexican newspaper El Relámpago during 1894 and 1895. Attention will be paid to its structure (patrimonial vocabulary, Nahuatlisms, Anglicisms, etc.) and to principal word formation processes and patterns of semantic change that can be found there. Another aim of study will comprehend its comparison with other Hispanic prison slangs, mainly the Spanish one, from the historical point of view. This historically focused comparison and analysis will show directions of evolution that would allow us to interpret this jargon as properly Mexican, or "national".
Keywords:
prison slang, historical lexicology, word formation, semantic change
Buzek, I. (2019). Mexican prison slang in the 19th century literature of manners: the case of la chaquira (Belén por dentro). Boletín De Filología, 54(1), pp. 39–64. Retrieved from https://pedagogiaderecho.uchile.cl/index.php/BDF/article/view/53528
Twitter