LSRL 18: Pronominal Address in Honduran Spanish

Pronominal Address in Honduran Spanish

Amanda Castro
Colorado State University

This volume presents the findings of an empirical examination of the Honduran Ladino culture. This study has found that there are in Honduras different rules for pronominal address that correspond to differences in the gender and social class of the speakers. Thus, there are different rules for men and women, as well as for members of the middle and lower classes. Other factors influencing the choice of pronoun are: the age and education of the interlocutors, the type of relationship existing between them (i.e., friendship, collegial, or kinship), the topic of conversation, their relative social power, the situation and the setting in which the interaction takes place, and the emotional and/or pragmatic meanings encoded in the pronouns.

The choice of pronouns at any given moment is generally affected by several of these factors, making it difficult to isolate any single factor, thus allowing for more predictability in the norms of pronominal address. In addition, there exist some co-occurrence rules that determining the appropriateness of a given pronoun in the utterance. Finally, this volume pays special attention to the different semantic and pragmatic functions fulfilled by switching from one pronoun to another. Thus, establishing that pronominal switching can, indeed, be considered as an instance of code-switching as a conversational strategy.

ISBN 9783895866555. LINCOM Studies in Romance Linguistics 18. 200pp. 2000.