Lexical availability and spelling knowledge: an empirical study based on the influence of social factors

Resumen

The purpose of this article is to show empirically the influence of social factors on spelling, taking as reference the approaches of the lexical availability. The study sample consists of 400 preuniversity students from Seville who conducted the survey following the guidelines of the Pan-Hispanic Project of Lexical Availability. The multivariate analyses show that women commit fewer misspellings than men in all the segments analyzed (type of center, population and sociocultural level) and that the frequency of error of men is greater in private centers than in public centers. This study opens new lines of research in the sociolinguistic and linguistics applied to language teaching, as it tests the influence of social factors not only in the lexicon available but also in the spelling