Interrogative markers of contact control in the PRESEEA corpus of Santiago, Chile

Authors

  • Abelardo San Martín Núñez Universidad de Chile

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to approach from a variationist point of view a specific type of discursive markers in spoken Spanish in Santiago de Chile: interrogative markers of contact control. For this purpose, we identified the particles that perform that function in a sample of 54 interviews that make up the PRESEEA Sociolinguistic Corpus in Santiago, Chile were. On the one hand, we analyzed the behavior of such markers in the variety of Chilean Spanish indicated above and, on the other hand, we established their distribution in a socially stratified sample of Santiago speakers. For the study of these particles, we applied Briz (2001), Martin Zorraquino and Portolés (1999) and Portolés (2001) concepts and classifications of discourse markers, and the suggestions of Cortes (1988) for quantitative analysis. The analysis considered the «interrogative marker of contact control» as a sociolinguistic variable with one or more values or variants (markers). Consequently, socio-demographic factors were correlated with the subjects’ use of such markers. Thus, based on the functional-pragmatic commutability of the discourse markers found in the interviews we carried out a quantitative analysis according to the variables age, sex, gender and educational level of the interviewees.

Keywords:

discourse analysis, discourse markers, phatic function, discursive variation, sociolinguistics, Chilean Spanish