Pura Vida
This quotation, roughly translated to be “It is a story of lives that are in a pure state. It is pura vida” is taken from the award-winning novel entitled Pura Vida by José María Mendiluce, which is set in and dedicated to Costa Rica. Its title is one of many examples of the popularity and ubiquity of the phrase “pura vida” in the Spanish of Costa Rica. To give the most basic definition of the phrase,
the invariant semantic content or “core meaning” as per Lawrence Schoroup (1999) would be to say that the expression means literally pure life, a good life. Use of the expression is very positive and includes the speaker and the hearer in the understanding that things are very good. This paper is an examination the uses of the expression “pura vida” in the Spanish of Costa Rica, using sociolinguistic methodology, discourse analysis and language and identity analysis. This phrase "pura vida” along with other features, such as the palatalization of [r], use of “vos” instead of “tu” for
second person singular, and the lexical items “tuanis” –cool- and “mahe” – dude-are unique to and characteristic of the Spanish of Costa Rica. These observable linguistic traits serve within the country, throughout Central America and indeed in many parts of the world to identify the speaker’s nationality

except from Anna Marie Trestor, New York University

The Economy

Costa Rica's basically stable economy depends on tourism, agriculture, and electronics exports. It has the second biggest GDP per capita in Latin America. Poverty has been reduced over the past 50 years, and a social safety net put into place. Economic growth rebounded from -0.9% in 1996 to 4% in 1997, 6% in 1998, 7% in 1999.
Inflation rose to 22.5% in 1995, dropped to 11.1% in 1997, 12% in 1998, and 11% in 1999. Large government deficits--fueled by interest payments on the massive internal debt--and inefficient administration by government monopolies have undermined efforts to maintain the quality of social services. Curbing inflation, reducing the deficit, and improving public sector efficiency remain key challenges to the government. Political resistance to privatization has stalled liberalization efforts.
Costa Rica's economy emerged from recession in 1997 and has shown strong aggregate growth since then. After 6.2% growth in 1998, GDP grew a substantial 8.3% in 1999, led by exports of the country's free trade zones and the tourism sector. The Central Bank attributes almost half of 1999 growth to the production of Intel Corporation's microprocessor assembly and testing plant.
The strength in the nontraditional export and tourism sector is masking a relatively lackluster performance by traditional sectors, including agriculture. Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index, was 10.1% in 1999, down from 11.2% the year before. The central government deficit decreased to 3.2% of GDP in 1999, down from 3.3% from the year before. On a consolidated basis, including Central Bank losses and parastatal enterprise profits, the public sector deficit was 2.3% of GDP.
Controlling the budget deficit remains the single biggest challenge for the country's economic policy makers, as interest costs on the accumulated central government debt consumes the equivalent of 30% of the government's total revenues. This limits the resources available for investments in the country's deteriorated public infrastructure, investments in many cases that would result in higher quality infrastructure if not made through the many inefficient government monopolies.

More than the 90% of the Costa Ricans are catholic , but almost no one gets riled about his or her religion and faith, as religious freedom is granted by the constitution and upheld by the tolerant nature of the Ticos. Holy Week (the week before Easter) is a national holiday, and its supposed to be a time of prayers and good behavior, but people in almost every place of Costa Rica take it as an excuse for vacations and secular binge. Here the passing of the parish priest inspires no reverential gestures. And almost all Costa Ricans respond to the sound of the church’s bells only on special events, like baptism, marriage, and maybe the Easter morning our during mourning masses.

Costa Rica as a country has always been remarkably secular, the relationship between the state and the church has been always very weak. The population special dislike for dictators have made them intolerant of priests, together with the influence of secular liberal administrations that vanished orders and deeply affected the church's influence at the beginning of the 19th century. The church in the feudal Central American nations offered the peasants who where poor and ignorant a great consolation which was salvation and the kingdom of heaven. But in Costa Rica the church had trouble from the earliest colonial times to take control over people minds and moral. While poor peasants can be convinced they’ll become bourgeois in heaven, a rising class wants its comforts on earth. Costa Rica’s modernity and middle-class achievements have made the traditional Church and all of its meanings superfluous for many people.

Still, every village, no matter how small it is, has a church facing east, on the west side of the central plaza, and its own saint’s day, which is usually celebrated with secular fervor. Every home, taxi, office and bus has its token religious icons. The Catholic marriage ceremony is the only church marriage with state recognition, and so, Catholicism is the official state religion as mandated by the Constitution of 1949 .