Coda /s/ and intervocalic /d/ elision in Andalusia: The formation of Susana Díaz's regional identity in political discourse

Pollock, Matthew; Wheeler, Jamelyn

doi:10.1016/j.langcom.2022.08.001

Cited by 4 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 21 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Languages 2023, 8, 196 2 of 24 and as a woman of the people. Pollock and Wheeler (2022) found something similar for the former Andalusian president, Susana Díaz, whose use of regional variants shifted over time as she established herself in her presidency. Interestingly, Díaz received considerable national attention for speech patterns described as uneducated and rural, despite only deviating in certain contexts from the Andalusian female speech norms established in this study.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

“…Next, speaker gender was selected, given the frequent correlation between male speech and innovative variants for /s/ (Ruiz-Domínguez 1997; Samper-Padilla 2011, pp. 106-7) and intervocalic /d/ (Gómez-Serrano 1994; Molina-Martos 1998) in comparison with the tendency in studies of peninsular political speech for female politicians to go against these trends (e.g., Hernández-Campoy and Cutillas-Espinosa 2013; Pollock and Wheeler 2022). Following that, political party was included based on the hypothesis proposed by Hernández-Campoy and Cutillas-Espinosa (2010) that left-leaning politicians use regional features as a means of indexing rural, working-class identity.…”

Section: Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…In a follow-up study, Pollock and Wheeler (2022) examined how a former president of Andalusia, Susana Díaz, used regional variation to navigate southern peninsular indexicality. The authors determined that intervocalic /d/ and coda /s/ elision increased in scripted speeches late in Susana Díaz's presidency, deviating from her peers.…”

Section: Linguistic Style and Political Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The capital variety tends to be rather conservative, although intervocalic /d/ elision is frequent and aspiration of the coda /s/ can be found in certain parts of the city (e.g., Vallecas: Molina-Martos 2015). Meanwhile, Andalusian Spanish (AS) is distinguished as a southern variety with a number of variable phenomena and contexts that are recipients of northern stigma while receiving positive evaluations in the south (e.g., Vida 2004;Villena-Ponsoda and Ávila-Muñoz 2014;Harjus 2017;Fernández de Molina 2018;Villena-Ponsoda and Vida-Castro 2020;Pollock and Wheeler 2022;Pollock 2023;etc.). In order to distinguish how AS politicians use their language, four variable contexts were identified that differ across regions and offer politicians a context for identity construction and style-shifting behavior.…”

Section: Andalusian Spanish Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These deviations, however, were found to be highly salient. Both of these female politicians, holding some of the highest positions of power in the country, were nonetheless perceived negatively in the press and on social media based on their use of traditionally male-favored regional features (Pollock and Wheeler 2022) 1 .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech

Pollock

2023

Languages

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Performative style is an important sociolinguistic variable among politicians, who accomplish agentive goals through speech. Examining 32 Spanish politicians, this article focuses on four Andalusian Spanish phenomena: the fronting of /t͡ʃ/ and the deletion of coda /s/, resyllabified intervocalic onset /s/, and intervocalic /d/. The analysis first looks at overall community production norms for the variants then turns to examine the style-shifting patterns of one individual who deviates from these norms. This individual is examined through a consideration of lectal focusing in interaction to track moment-by-moment variation. While coda /s/ and intervocalic /d/ deletion show usage patterns governed by regional and contextual factors, the deletion of onset /s/ and fronted /t͡ʃ/ reflect social variation and style-shifting. While politicians do not blindly follow partisan norms, normative expectations exist at the regional level that they can choose to depart from due to individual motivations and political affiliation in order to carry out identity work. This study combines quantitative examinations of community and individual variation to contribute to our understanding of style-shifting behavior in political speech and how politicians use linguistic tools to take on oppositional identities in the public sphere.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 77%

Section: Independent Variablesmentioning

confidence: 96%

Section: Linguistic Style and Political Speechmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Andalusian Spanish Featuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech

Pollock

2023

Languages

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Politics, variation, and politeness on Andalusian Twitter (X)

Pollock

2024

Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study focuses on sociolinguistic variation and politeness on the social media platform Twitter (X) to track the decline in the second person plural ustedes form among politicians in southern and northern-central Spain. An analysis of politeness in computer-mediated communication (CMC) identified pragmatic differences across politicians and showed how second-person plural variation plays a role in politeness and regional identity work. The study found that the use of impoliteness on social media is on the rise, while use of ustedes is low and used in specific contexts. From a variationist perspective, impoliteness correlates with ustedes use against political opponents, and shows that politicians employ this form as a means of creating social distance between themselves and rivals.

show abstract

Buenas no[tʃ]es y mu[ts]isimas gracias: A Sociophonetic Study of the Alveolar Affricate in Peninsular Spanish Political Speech

Pollock

2024

Languages

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

While variation in the southern Peninsular Spanish affricate /tʃ/ has been considered in the context of deaffrication to [ʃ], this study examines an emergent variant [ts] in the context of sociolinguistic identity and style in political speech. Based on a corpus of public speech from Madrid and Andalusia, Spain, this study examines the phonetic and sociolinguistic characteristics of the affricate, finding variation in the quality of the frication portion of the segment through an analysis of segment duration (ms), the center of gravity (Hz), and a categorical identification of realization type. The results suggest that both linguistic variables, like phonetic environment, stress, lexical frequency, and following vowel formant height, as well as extralinguistic variables, like speaker city, gender, political affiliation, and speech context, condition use. Based on these findings, it appears that production of the alveolar affricate [ts] is an incipient sociolinguistic marker in the process of acquiring social meaning. It is particularly associated with female speech and prestige norms that transcend regional identification. This alveolar variant serves as an additional sociolinguistic resource accessible for identity development among politicians and offers insight into ongoing change in the affricate inventory of southern and northern-central Peninsular Spanish.

show abstract

Coda /s/ and intervocalic /d/ elision in Andalusia: The formation of Susana Díaz's regional identity in political discourse

Cited by 4 publications

References 21 publications

Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech

Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech

Politics, variation, and politeness on Andalusian Twitter (X)

Buenas no[tʃ]es y mu[ts]isimas gracias: A Sociophonetic Study of the Alveolar Affricate in Peninsular Spanish Political Speech

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About