Discourse-pragmatic variation of the second person singular in Chilean Spanish: A multifunctional analysis proposal

The second person singular Chilean paradigm presents three forms of address: tuteo, voseo and ustedeo, all part of a distinctive complex system within the Spanish American world (Benavides, 2003). Apart from morphosyntax, from the field of linguistic variation it is important to highlight the use of the pronominal system in order to transmit specific communicative functions. In this sense, the main goal of the present study is to analyze the distinctive discourse-pragmatic dimensions in the usage of second person singular in Chilean Spanish. Therefore, a typology with four different functions is proposed: a) Direct address (traditional deictic usage), b) Reproduced address, c) Non-deictic usage, d) Discourse markers. For a more integral analysis these variables have been related to pronominal address, according to a morphosyntactic factor. The oral corpus we have used is composed of sociolinguistic interviews. Our results indicate that the categories here proposed represent adequately the multifunctional character of the second person system, which is employed by speakers as a stylistic strategy to provide utterances with specific communicative values that transcend personal understanding and project a collective knowledge about the social norms of language.