“Being myself in Spanish”

Abstract

Abstract This case study examines the pragmatic development of address forms of a US-based Spanish heritage speaker of Mexican descent, Juan, during an 11-week abroad program in Argentina. Instruments included a background questionnaire, a pre/post-written elicitation task, four interviews, and 16 naturalistic recordings during host family dinners and service encounters. Findings indicate that Juan decreased his use of vos on elicitation tasks and did not use vos at all in naturalistic recordings. There was an increase, however, in his metapragmatic awareness, or his understanding of the ways variable forms index social meaning, specifically regarding address forms. These results were related to Juan’s bicultural identity construction, investment, and evolving withdrawal from or participation in the host community. This study highlights the importance of triangulating elicited and naturalistic data with qualitative information and moving away from appropriate-based models that compare heritage speakers’ pragmatic choices to those of monolingual native speakers.