The heheo: is That Even a Thing? A Sociolinguistic Approach from Loja (Andalusia)

This sociolinguistic study focuses on an underanalysed phonetic feature of the Andalusian dialect (Spanish) which can be found in the town of Loja (Andalusia): the ‘heheo’. The ‘heheo’ is the sporadic and lexically conditioned substitution of the /s/ and/or /q/ sounds by /h/ at the beginning of a word or syllable. In spite of being widespread all-over Latin America and Southern Spain, this linguistic feature is characterised by its lack of linguistic prestige. This study can be of an interest to a diverse population: ranging from academics due to the terminological chaos around this phenomenon, to students of linguistics as this phenomenon actually constitutes a research gap. And of course, actual users of heheo, because of their low level of linguistic awareness concerning this stigmatized phenomenon. During the development of this research, a detailed analysis conducted on the sociolinguistic perception about this phonetic phenomenon. For this purpose, an online survey was designed and launched to a wide range of Spanish speakers from the town of Loja. Thanks to it, the three main research questions were answered: (1) What are the language attitudes towards the heheo in the town of Loja? (2) What is the level of linguistic awareness of the user of heheo? (3) Does a linguistic identity exists among the users of heheo? The only goal of this study is to provide new information about this research gap in order to contribute to a deeper understanding of the heterogeneity of the Andalusian dialect.