Correlations between the Pronominal Address Forms, Origin (Urban/Rural) and Age: The Case of College Students in Medellin (Colombia)

Abstract

In this paper we are going to present some results of a research about pronominal selection among university students in the city of Medellin (Colombia). We have done so considering the following social variables: 1) urban or rural origin of the informant and his/her parents; 2) the average age of respondents. To carry out this research, a questionnaire, which lists different types of interactions from the university students from Medellin was implemented and 806 answers were obtained. In order to analyze the data, we: 1) estimated optimal sample size for polynomial distributions (Thompson, 1987); 2) applied Contingency tables (Cochran, 1952); 3) Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis test (Kruskal & Wallis, 1952); and 4) Analysis of variance (ANOVA). Statistics show that : 1) students from rural areas with parents of the same origin tend to use more usted than tú/ vos in most interpersonal relationships, and more vos than tú almost exclusively when they are addressing their boy/girlfriend; 2) the average age for the selection of usted is higher than for the selection of tú/vos in most cases, and just in certain cases the average age is higher using tú than the average age using vos.