A linguistic corpus is a comprehensive collection of texts, videos, and audio compiled for analysis and study. Corpora have myriad uses across many disciplines, including: 

• • phonetic analysis

  • cultural and sociolinguistic analysis (language attitudes, etc.)

  • historical documentation & language preservation

Some examples of existing corpora are: 

• • The California Language Archive

  • Dr. Bittar's CEGPA (housed within the California Language Archive)

The Vale Corpus is comprised of 48 interviews conducted with Paraguayan immigrants in Spain between September and November of 2024. Participants ranged in age from 22 to 56 years old. 25 of the participants are located in Barcelona, 22 in Madrid, and 1 in Bilbao. Participants were asked about their experiences as migrants, including their language use, the maintenance of Guarani, and the differences between Paraguayan Spanish and Peninsular Spanish.

There are four main instruments involved in the creation of the Vale Corpus:

• Bilingual Language Profile (BLP) questionnaire

• Adobe Premiere Pro video editing software

• Sonix automatic transcription software

• ELAN linguistic annotation software

The beginnings of our project involved compiling and organizing our data. This meant getting all of the Bilingual Language Profile (BLP) data and scores on a spreadsheet, as well as editing and transcribing interviews. With all of the materials and quantitative data organized, we are now focusing in on specific data points. We have two focus groups so far, each of 4 participants. Within the focus groups, participants vary by age, total time living in Spain, and Spanish-Guarani language dominance (quantified by the BLP score). With these variations in mind, we will be able to analyze how such factors play into linguistic identity, language attitudes, etc.