ABSTRACT
1 Walking through the streets of Buenos Aires, it is not difficult to detect patterns of the superdiverse global city: mismatched architectural styles, socio-spatial segregation, and pronounced linguistic variation reflect a diverse array of cultural influences. A long history of immigration has had a crucial impact on the constitution of the city and, in particular, its language. This historical understanding (cf. Blommaert, 2010, p. 175) of Buenos Aires as an early globalized urban space shaped by different migration flows and significant urban transformation processes will help to reveal the increasingly complex dynamics the city presents today. These dynamics are not only manifested in the city’s material structure but also in the collective memories of the residents and in their discourses about the space they live in. Through their social interactions and communicative exchanges with the Other within a social framework, the inhabitants construct, negotiate, and give symbolic meaning to places, form mental boundaries, and develop heightened reflexivity regarding language use (Mac Giolla Chríost, 2007, p. 15).
