La riqueza léxica y fraseológica venezolana como reto para la competencia comunicativa intercultural: el Diccionario de venezolanismos

This study examines the lexical and phraseological richness of Venezuelan Spanish through selected entries from the Diccionario de Venezolanismos, a foundational work published between 1983 and 1993 by the Academia Venezolana de la Lengua and the Instituto de Filología “Andrés Bello” of the Universidad Central de Venezuela (UCV), 357 under the coordination of María Josefina Tejera and building on the legacy of Ángel Rosenblat. It is a descriptive (non-normative) dictionary that rigorously documents the linguistic and cultural particularities of Venezuela. The primary objectives are: to identify key semantic divergences and meaning extensions in relation to general Spanish; to classify lexical and phraseological entries reflecting unique cultural referents, contrasting them with Peninsular Spanish and Italian; to verify definitions, grammatical categories, and usage registers; and to assess the historical-contextual documentation provided by the dictionary. The methodology relies on a proprietary corpus compiled by the research team, comprising terms and phraseological units of high cultural significance (e.g., agaje, arepa, agalludo, apamate, tragar alpargata). The analysis encompasses the semantic study of proverbs and idiomatic expressions (Luisa A. Messina Fajardo), lexicographical description and metalinguistic marking (Ricardo Connett), intercultural contrast with Italian (Anna Gabriela Di Lodovico), and historical-contextual validation through citations from canonical authors (Trinis A. Messina Fajardo and Ruth C. Castillo Ochoa). The research underscores Venezuelan lexicon as a vehicle of cultural identity and its implications for communication.