Forms of address in interaction: Evidence from Chilean Spanish

Abstract

This study reexamines the nature of forms of address in Chilean Spanish. Traditionally, survey-, ethnography- and interview-based methods have suggested that the address system of Chilean Spanish is rather static—in other words, that the choice between second person singular pronouns and their corresponding verbal inflections is uniquely determined by the relationship between speaker, interlocutor, and setting. Additionally, when variable usage has been documented, it has been observed in semi-staged and scripted settings, and interpreted as a random phenomenon in which shifts occur freely and unmarkedly. Using evidence from both unstaged everyday, ordinary talk settings and institutional contexts, this study demonstrates that address forms in Chilean Spanish are dynamic, and that speakers of this variety deploy them strategically to achieve their interactional goals. This locates my study within previous sociolinguistic research of the interactional strand, in which forms of address are interpreted as tools that speakers use to discursively construct relevant, time-specific aspects of their identities. Ultimately, it demonstrates that, far from being unequivocally constrained by socially conventionalized pragmatic norms, speakers are in control of their linguistic, discursive resources, and deploy different and varied address forms in ways that allow them to accomplish their immediate interactional goals.