Ver en castellano
The EMIS socioeconomic stratification system
EMIS is a system for socioeconomically stratifying Chileans for the purposes of linguistic research. Its adoption makes it possible to perform valid inter-group, intra-group and inter-speaker comparisons within or between studies, regardless of the author. Likewise, it allows studies that focus on a single social group (e.g. “lower-middle class people from Concepción”) to create a speaker sample that actually consists of members of this group.
EMIS is detailed in the following book chapter:
Sadowsky, Scott. 2021. EMIS: Sistema de estratificación socioeconómica para la investigación lingüística [The EMIS Socioeconomic Stratification System for Linguistic Research]. In: B. M. A. Rogers & M. Figueroa Candia (eds.), Lingüística del castellano chileno: Estudios sobre variación, innovación, contacto e identidad [Chilean Spanish Linguistics: Studies on variation, innovation, contact, and identity]. Wilmington, DE: Vernon Press. [PDF]
The abstract is as follows:
This chapter presents a method for socioeconomically stratifying Chileans for the purposes of linguistic research. Known as EMIS, it utilizes two variables (educational level and occupational level) and their point of intersection on a specially designed matrix to categorize speakers as members of one of six socioeconomic levels (A, B, Ca, Cb, D, E). The underpinnings and individual components of the system are presented in detail, and then a step-by-step explanation of how to apply it is provided. Finally, a series of six investigations in which EMIS was used are presented in order to determine its precision, coherence and robustness.
The Excel spreadsheet that semi-automatically calculates the EMIS level is available here:
Latest version: