Nominal address and rapport management in informal interactions among university students in Quito (Ecuador), Santiago (Chile) and Seville (Spain)

Abstract

Nominal and pronominal address forms, which play a central role in the construction of interpersonal relations (cf. Bargiela et al. 2002;Clyne, Norrby and Warren 2009), have been the focus of attention in different linguistics subfields for several decades now. Less attention, however, has been paid to these forms from a variational pragmatics (Schneider and Barron 2008) perspective, particularly in Spanish.Using a corpus of role play interactions, we examine the impact of region and gender on nominal address usage among male and female university students from Quito (Ecuador), Santiago (Chile) and Seville (Spain). We look at how these forms are employed in rapport management (Spencer-Oatey 2008 Among the findings recorded was a larger repertoire of nominal forms in the Santiago and Quito data sets relative to the Seville corpus, with the highest frequency of use in Santiago. We suggest that address usage in the dyadic contexts examined is connected to the expression of affect and involvement, with Chileans (Santiago) and Ecuadorians (Quito) displaying more affect than Spaniards (Seville). Contrary to early research suggesting that women employ more affiliative language than men (cf. Lakoff 1995), overall, males in the present study were found to use address forms more frequently than females across the three locations.

Regional pragmatic variation in the use of the discourse marker pues in informal talk among university students in Quito (Ecuador), Santiago (Chile) and Seville (Spain)

“…This is in line with results on a study on address forms in the same varieties (Placencia, Fuentes and Palma 2015). Region interacts with other macrosocial as well as situational factors.…”

“…Participants 13 The same data were employed in Placencia, Fuentes and Palma (2015). The data collection involved another scenario eliciting complaints albeit in a +SD +P type of relationship (i.e., within a service encounter), which we did not include in the present study.…”

La ironía del profesor de bachillerato: funciones y efectos perlocutivos. Análisis de una muestra representativa

“…Si nos detenemos un poco más en estos enunciados, sobresale una característica común: las formas de tratamiento. P063 y P041 recurren a formas de tratamiento nominal (Placencia et al, 2015), verbigracia, "amor" y "mijo". Ambas expresan un tratamiento fraternal, aparentemente cariñoso.…”

Strategies of Address in English Lingua Franca (ELF) Academic Interactions

“…Comments (15), (16) and (17) reveal that Asian students are particularly sensitive to the expression of deference and respect in academic relations compared to European and Latin American students. This matches some of the observations made by African and Asian students themselves (see comments (4), (5) and (6) above).…”