ABSTRACT
This chapter presents an overview of the most recent variationist research in South America. Since the development of the first language corpora in the early 1970s, Hispanic sociolinguistics thrived. Additionally, the sociolinguistics of society, describing aspects of multilingualism, policy, and ideology, is discussed. These topics give insight into cases of language contact across Latin America, including contexts where Indigenous, European, and African languages are used alongside Spanish. There has been an admirable trend in sociolinguistic research, within the last decades, to use approaches that allow the representation of minority and underserved communities, and better understand individual choices in the formation of identity. The chapter also points to numerous opportunities for exciting research, as Latin America is experiencing radical changes, including legal provisions for ethnic groups, regime changes, and social developments that promise to reshape national identity and language use. All of these developments are redefining speech communities and providing sociolinguistic innovations for future generations to discover in the study of multicultural Hispanic South America.
