Pronominal and Spatio-Temporal Deixis in Contemporary Spanish Political Discourse: A Corpus-based Pragmatic Analysis
Open Access
- Author:
- Gelabert, Jaime J
- Graduate Program:
- Spanish
- Degree:
- Doctor of Philosophy
- Document Type:
- Dissertation
- Date of Defense:
- June 30, 2004
- Committee Members:
- James Lantolf, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
Meredith Christine Doran, Committee Chair/Co-Chair
John Miguel Toribio, Committee Member
Paola Eulalia Dussias, Committee Member
John Lipski, Committee Member - Keywords:
- Discourse Analysis
Pragmatics
Political Discourse - Abstract:
- ABSTRACT The research reported in this study investigates deixis in contemporary Spanish political discourse. In particular, it focuses on the pronominal and spatio-temporal aspects of deixis and establishes a comparison with a corpus of everyday talk. Although the behavior of pronouns has received a substantial amount of attention in the Anglo-American scholarly literature, the present project represents a significant contribution to the field in Spanish. This dissertation studies in depth pronominal forms (such as yo/ nosotros/ usted, etc.), professional terms of address (su señoría, señor diputado), and spatio-temporal deixis (aquí, hoy, en esta tribuna, etc.), in order to highlight the differences between political discourse in the parliament and everyday talk. Methodologically, this project draws from different paradigms. While its general framework is discourse analytic, it provides a pragmatic interpretation of the data, taking into account the linguistic and extralinguistic contexts of the speeches. It also takes from corpus linguistics in that it highlights the quantitative differences between two large corpora (political discourse and everyday talk). The results suggest that several factors affect language in the parliamentary setting beyond the lexical level. Immediacy, iconicity, and the confrontational character of the interaction between members of the parliament, for instance, are aspects to be considered when analyzing the language in this particular setting. This dissertation highlights the need for a deeper understanding of political discourse beyond the lexical level. In studying deictic expressions, it reveals the indivisible relationship between language and its social function.