title: Crowdsourcing dialect characterization through Twitter.
abstract: We perform a large-scale analysis of language diatopic variation using geotagged microblogging datasets. By collecting all Twitter messages written in Spanish over more than two years, we build a corpus from which a carefully selected list of concepts allows us to characterize Spanish varieties on a global scale. A cluster analysis proves the existence of well defined macroregions sharing common lexical properties. Remarkably enough, we find that Spanish language is split into two superdialects, namely, an urban speech used across major American and Spanish citites and a diverse form that encompasses rural areas and small towns. The latter can be further clustered into smaller varieties with a stronger regional character.
authors.affiliation: Aix-Marseille Université, CNRS, CPT, UMR 7332, 13288 Marseille, France; Université de Toulon, CNRS, CPT, UMR 7332, 83957 La Garde, France.
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gonçalves
authors.affiliation: Instituto de Física Interdisciplinar y Sistemas Complejos IFISC (UIB-CSIC), E-07122 Palma de Mallorca, Spain.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Sánchez
mesh_terms: D057218:Blogging; D063045:Crowdsourcing; D006801:Humans; D007802:Language; D061108:Social Media