15TH INTERNATIONAL PRAGMATICS CONFERENCEAURÉLIE MARSILY (UNIVERSITÉ CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN) 18.07.2017

Address terms in Spanish native and non-native request interactions

Belfast 1

ÍNDICE

1 • Introduction

2 • Theoretical background and hypothesis

3 • Corpus presentation

4 • Results

5 • Discussion and conclusions2

1. INTRODUCTION

The personal pronouns tú/usted (T/V) are strategies used by the speakers in order to maintain the balance

between interpersonal and social relations within a speech community. (Blas Arroyo 2005:12)

In general, the speakers of a community are able to interpret, for each speech context, when to use which

kind of treatment. (ibid.)

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1. INTRODUCTION

Aims:

1. examine the ways in which native speakers and French-speaking learners of Spanish address their professors

2. focus on the use of address forms in naturalized interactions (with a teaching assistant) and on the factors

that determine the students’ choice of address terms

3. analyse the use of informal singular address tú and formal singular address usted in Spanish

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2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

a request = “a directive speech act which counts as an attempt to get H [hearer] to do an act which S [speaker] wants H to do, and which S believes that H is able to do; and which is not obvious that H will do in the normal course of events or of H’s own accord.” (Searle, 1969: 66)

a request is performed primarily for the benefit of the speaker (Trosborg, 1995)

face-threatening exhortative act (Brown and Levinson, 1987)

due to the impositive nature of the request, “some degree of linguistic tact” is required to produce the speech act successfully (Pinto and Raschio, 2007: 135)

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2. THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

French and Spanish share a common origin and, hence, many linguistic characteristics, e.g. T/V subdivision. However, differences in the use of these structures.

Specific patterns of the communicative behaviour of each language (Escandell Vidal, 2009). They can change from language to language and from culture to culture.

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2. HYPOTHESES

French is a less direct language than Spanish (when addressing a professor)

French-speaking learners of Spanish tend to transfer this indirectness in the L2

Spanish native speakers use more frequently the tú form when addressing a professor

French-speaking learners tend to use the V-form in the same situations

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3. METHODOLOGY 3.1. General presentation of the corpus COPINE (Corpus Oral de Peticiones en Interacciones

Naturalizadas en Español)

Inspired of Tran’s Naturalized Role-Play (2006) : "distracting the participant’s attention"

Express requests in a spontaneous and authentic way

Recorder + video + field notes

The data is analyzed following a previously elaborated request taxonomy.

Naturalized Interaction (NI)• Oral production (during the whole experiment)

Written Discourse Completion Task• Written production

Questionnaire• Perception

1

2

3

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3. METHODOLOGY

3.2. Example: the pen and the bad copy

¿Tienes un bolígrafo? Do you have a pen?

Eh sí, aquí tienes un boli.Ehm yes, here you have a pen.

(ELM1)

¿Es normal queee… que es un poco difícil de leer? Is it normal that… that it is a bit difficult to read?

¿Qué es esto? What’s that?

(risas) (laughter) No, no es normal.

No, it’s not normal. (NI_007_FF) 9

3. METHODOLOGY

3.3. Scenario of the experiment

1.Linguistic

profile form

2.Written task

(DCT)

3.LimeSurvey

Questionnaire

4.Feedback

conversation

10Naturalized Interaction (corpus)

4. RESULTS

Request formulations

(1) Oh… ¿Es tuyo?Oh... Is it yours (T)? Oh, sí, perdona. (risas) Gracias.Oh, yes, sorry. (laughter) Thank you. (IN_022_FF)

(2) OK, te dejo leer las consignas. OK, I let you (T) read the instructions. Eh, (mostrando la hoja) ¿tiene otra porque no sé leer? (sic) (risas)Ehm (shows sheet) Do you (V) have another one because I can’t read? (laughter) ¿Qué es esto? Lo siento, lo siento, eh no, eso nooo, a ver te doy otra copia.What’s that? I’m sorry, I’m sorry, ehm no, that nooo, I’ll give you another copy. (IN_020_FF) 11

4. RESULTS: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Distribution of male and female students of the corpus (naturalized interactions)

79

2625

30

102030405060708090

Spanish native speakers (TOT=104) Spanish non-native speakers (TOT=29)

Female Male

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4. RESULTS: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Address forms used towards the teaching assistant in the naturalized interactions

99%

17%

1%

23%

0%

60%

0%

20%

40%

60%

80%

100%

120%

Spanish native speakers Spanish non-native speakers

Tú Usted Impersonal

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4. RESULTS: QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

Address forms used towards a professor in the written DCT

25%

0%

56%

79%

1% 0%

18% 21%

0%10%20%30%40%50%60%70%80%90%

Spanish native speakers Spanish non-native speakers

Tú Usted Impersonal Combination

Total natives: 103Total non-natives: 14

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4. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Native students’ criteria when addressing a professor:

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Relation with the professor Status (known/unkown) Hierarchy, social distance Personal relation Context (group or one to one)

Sociolinguistic variables Age of the hearer but also of the speaker Professor’s character (personality) and interaction established with the

students

Communicative mode Written or oral communication mode

Evolution of the relation Moment (beginning or end of term in the case of professor-student communication)

Whether the hearer addresses the speaker by means of tú gives permission to use it

Whether the hearer explicitly states how s/he wants to be addressed

4. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

French-speaking students’ criteria to address a professor in Belgium:

Always use vous

French-speaking students’ criteria to address a Spanish professor:

Depends on their Spanish level and on how much they have internalised the rules

What the students know about Spanish is not always sufficient to change their behaviour

« Comme pour d’autres variables sociolinguistiques, les non-natifs tendent à être trop formels. Cela reflète probablement la maxime qui leur a été inculquée, notamment que dans le doute il vaut mieux être trop poli, et donc que l’ami pardonnera plus facilement un « vous » inapproprié qu’un « tu » inapproprié. » (Dewaele2003:6)

As for other sociolinguistic variables, the non-natives tend to be too formal. This probably reflects the rule that they have been taught, including that, when in doubt, it would be better to be too polite and that the friend will forgive more easily an inappropriate V-form than an inappropriate T-form.

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4. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Which factors do Spanish native students perceive as inappropriate in non-native request formulations?

Use tú for professor

Be too direct (omit questions and use the imperative mode)

Show too much proximity towards the professor

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4. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

Spanish students’ explanations of this inappropriateness:

« El uso de los imperativos para hacer una petición así como las formas indirectas de hacer también cualquier clase de petición, son más propias de los españoles, por lo que en boca de un extranjero resultan muy raras y chocantes, es algoque sencillamente no encaja con su forma de hablar » [753]

The use of the imperative mode to formulate a request and also indirect forms for any request strategy is more typical of Spanish people, and from a foreign person, it would sound very weird and shocking, it is something that does not fit with the way they talk.

« A pesar de que no me atrevería a usar el tú con un profesor, en el caso de los no nativos sí podría esperar que vacilasen en las formas al no ser tan comunes en el español coloquial. No obstante, he marcado como inadecuadas aquellas que me parecen demasiado directas, aquellas en las que se trata al profesor como a un amigo íntimo. » [943]

Despite the fact that I would not dare to use tú towards a professor, in the case of non-native speakers I would expect them to hesitatebetween the forms, as they are not very common in coloquial Spanish. However, I marked inadequate the ones where they seemed toodirect and the ones where the professor is being treated as an intimate friend.

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4. RESULTS: QUALITATIVE ANALYSIS

What do professors say about students’ use of tú/usted?

Sometimes different explanations (first class vs end of year)

Tú as a convention / Allow tú

some would appreciate usted (accepted vs expected)

others really prefer tú

Usted rather in written media

Infantilization of previous rules (high school)

Master students tend to use tú more oftenand more quickly than Bachelor students

Source: Google Images

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5. CONCLUSIONS

Culture specific rules of politeness

Traditionnally:

Usted respect, deference, reverence (Blas Arroyo 1994:30)

Tú familiarity, confidence, solidarity (Blas Arroyo 1994:31)

Today: tú/usted ≠ polite/not polite different politeness strategies

Complexity and variety of factors that play a role in native speakers’ explanations

Non-native difficulty to adapt to native rules

Politeness markers go beyond the simple use of tú/usted

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REFERENCES Bataller, R. (2013). "Role-plays vs. natural data: asking for a drink at a cafeteria in peninsular Spanish". Íkala, revista de lenguaje y cultura, 18(2), pp.111–126

Blas Arroyo, J. L. (1994), “Los pronombres de tratamiento y la cortesía”, Revista de Filología de la Universidad de La Laguna, 10, pp. 7-36

Blas Arroyo, J. L. (2005). Los grados de la cortesía verbal: reflexiones en torno a algunas estrategias y recursos lingüísticos en el español peninsular contemporáneo. Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 5: 9-29.

Blum-Kulka, S. y J. House (1989). Cross-cultural and Situational Variation in Requesting Behavior. En Blum-Kulka, S., House, J. y G. Kasper (eds.) Cross-cultural Pragmatics: Requests and Apologies, Norwood: Ablex. 123–54.

Brown, P. and Levison, S. (1987). Politeness. Some Universals in Language Usage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Curcó, C. (1998). ¿No me harías un favorcito? In La pragmática lingüística del español: Recientes desarrollos, H. Haverkate, G. Mulder and C.F. Maldonado (eds), 129-172. Barcelona: Rodopi.

Dewaele, J.-M. (2002) Vouvoiement et tutoiement en français natif et non-natif: une approche sociolinguistique et interactionnelle. La Chouette 33:1-14

Dewaele, J.-M., « Enquête sur le choix (rapporté) du pronom d’allocution en français natif et non-natif », Numéro spécial de Franco-British Studies: Second-person pronouns and forms of address in contemporary european languages, n° 33/34, 2003/2004, p. 46-54..

Escandell Vidal, Ma V. (2009). Social Cognition and Second Language Learning. In Gómez-Morón, R., Padilla Cruz, M., Fernández Amaya, L. y M.O. Hernández López (eds.). Pragmatics Applied to Language Teaching and Learning. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, 1-39.

Haverkate, H. 2006. Aspectos pragmalingüísticos de la interrogación en español con atención especial a las secuencias de preguntas. Cultura, lenguaje y representación, 3:27-40.

Pinto, D. and Raschio, R. 2007. A Comparative Study of Requests in Heritage Speaker Spanish, L1 Spanish, and L1 English. International Journal of Bilingualism, 11:135-155.

Searle, J. 1979. Expression and Meaning: Studies in the Theory of Speech Acts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Tran, G. Q. (2006). "The naturalized role-play: An innovative methodology in cross-cultural and interlanguage pragmatics research". Reflections on English Language Teaching, 5(2), 1-24.

Trosborg, A. (1995) Interlanguage Pragmatics. Requests, Complaints and Apologies. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

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15th international pragmatics conferenceÍndice1. introduction1. introduction2. Theoretical background2. Theoretical background2. Hypotheses3. Methodology3. Methodology3. Methodology4. results4. results: quantitative analysis4. results: quantitative analysis4. results: quantitative analysis4. Results: qualitative analysis4. results: qualitative analysis4. results: qualitative analysis4. results: qualitative analysis4. results: qualitative analysis5. conclusionsreferences