Spanish subject pronoun expression among Bube speakers in Equatorial Guinea.

This article investigates Spanish subject pronoun expression (SPE) among bilingual speakers of Bube, an indigenous language, and Spanish in Equatorial Guinea (EG), focusing on the rate of overt pronoun use and its linguistic and social predictors. Analyzing sociolinguistic interviews with 18 bilinguals from Malabo, the study finds a notably low SPE rate of 17.9%, one of the lowest recorded among bilingual Spanish varieties. Significant predictors of SPE include grammatical person and number, verb ambiguity, lexical verb content, and gender, while reference, reflexivity, and education are insignificant factors. The low SPE rate and the insignificance of reference are discussed in relation to the prestige of Spanish as a colonial superstrate language in EG and the speakers' dominant use of Spanish, which aligns this variety more closely with peninsular Spanish than with other bilingual contexts. The study contributes to the limited research on Equatoguinean Spanish and highlights the complex language contact dynamics involving Spanish, Bube, and Pichi creole.