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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles On the Sequential Negotiation of Identity in Spanish-Language Discourse: Mobilizing Linguistic Resources in the Service of Social Action A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures by Chase Wesley Raymond 2014 © Copyright by Chase Wesley Raymond 2014 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION On the Sequential Negotiation of Identity in Spanish-Language Discourse: Mobilizing Linguistic Resources in the Service of Social Action by Chase Wesley Raymond Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles, 2014 Professor John Heritage, Co-chair Professor Claudia Parodi-Lewin, Co-chair This dissertation takes an ethnomethodologically-grounded, conversation-analytic approach in investigating the sequential deployment of linguistic resources in Spanish-language talk-in-interaction. Three sets of resources are examined: 2nd-person singular reference forms (tú, vos, usted), indicative/subjunctive verbal mood selection, and Spanish-English intersentential code-switching. In each case, we ask: How is it that these elements of language are mobilized by speakers to accomplish identity in the service of social action in interaction? With regard to 2nd-person reference forms, we illustrate how the turn-by-turn progression of talk can make relevant shifts in the linguistic means through which speakers refer to their hearers. It is demonstrated that these shifts contribute to the objective of an utterance by mobilizing the pragmatic meaning of a pronominal form to embody a recalibration of who the ii interactants project they are to one another—not in general, but rather at a particular moment in the ongoing interaction. In the case of verbal mood selection, we analyze the production of indicative (realis) vs. subjunctive (irrealis) morphology in syntactic constructions that license the use of either mood. It is argued that accounts of verbal mood selection which are based solely on individual-level cognitive realities fall short of explaining the moment-by-moment, dialogic production of morphology in sequences of naturalistic social interaction. Finally, in examining Spanish-English code-switching practices, we posit a parallel between language discordance and other sorts of nonconforming responsive utterances, arguing that code-switching in second position claims epistemic independence or primacy with regard to the knowledge invoked in the prior turn. Like repetitional responses in monolingual talk-in- interaction, code-switched turns in second position make a structural break with the language terms, constraints, and expectations set up by the first position turn, and thus they agentively resist the design of that previous turn to (re)assert their rights to the knowledge in question. Through the systematic analysis of this diverse array of interactional resources, it is argued that the deployment of linguistic structure is an integral component of how human identities are (re-)created—in and through social interaction with others. By grounding our inquiry in what Harold Garfinkel referred to as “members’ resources” for producing and recognizing action, we are able to reconceptualize identity as a sequentially-conditioned, malleable, and collaborative achievement between co-participants in talk. The dissertation as a whole thus actively problematizes the commonly held sociolinguistic and discourse-analytic views of speaker identities and situated contexts as immutable constructs, and instead argues in favor of more micro-level conceptualizations of these phenomena as emergent features of the moment- by-moment discourse being co-constructed through the deployment of linguistic structure. iii The dissertation of Chase Wesley Raymond is approved. Adriana J. Bergero Antonio Carlos Quicoli John Heritage, Committee Co-chair Claudia Parodi-Lewin, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2014 iv To my family: To my grandmother, Lorraine, who taught me to love school. To my grandmother, Doris, and my mother, Alice, who taught me to be (what my 4th grade report card referred to as) a “social butterfly”. To my grandfather, Richard, and my father, Dale, for being the example of the type of man I want to be. v TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 Approaching the Relationship between Language, Identity, and Action ………………….1 1.1 Approaching Identity in Linguistic Research…………………………………………....2 1.1.1 Generative Grammar…………………………………………………………….4 1.1.2 Sociolinguistics ………………………………………………………………......8 1.1.3 Moving More ‘Micro’: Language in Use……………………………………...11 1.2 Distinguishing Conversation Analysis from Other Approaches ……………………...12 1.2.1 Criticisms and Responses ……………………………………………………...16 1.2.2 Dialect and Dialectology……………………………………………………….20 1.2.3 Summary: Language, Identity, and Methodology …………………………...22 1.3 The Present Dissertation ………………………………………………………………...24 1.3.1 Conversation Analysis and Spanish-Language Discourse: Chapters 2 and 3 ………………………………………………………………..24 1.3.2 Three Resources of Spanish Talk-in-Interaction: Chapters 4, 5, and 6 ……...25 1.3.3 The Corpora of Data …………………………………………………………...27 1.3.3.1 Casual Conversation ……………………………………………….27 1.3.3.2 Radio Calls………………………………………………………….29 1.3.3.3 Televised News Interviews………………………………………...29 1.3.3.4 U.S. Calls for Emergency Service (to 9-1-1) ……………………...30 1.3.3.5 Pediatric Genetics Consultations ………………………………….30 1.4 Concluding Remarks …………………………………………………………………….31 vi 2 Three Resources for ‘Doing Identity’ in Spanish: (Socio-)Linguistic Background ………33 2.1 Preliminaries ……………………………………………………………………………..34 2.2 2nd-Person Singular (You) Person Reference: Tú, Vos, and Usted ……………………..35 2.2.1 A Brief History ………………………………………………………………….35 2.2.2 Modern Spanish: Pronouns and Dialect ……………………………………...39 2.2.3 Morphology……………………………………………………………………..43 2.2.4 Sociolinguistic Methods for Researching Pronouns ………………………….45 2.2.5 A Gap in the Previous Literature ……………………………………………...47 2.3 Verbal Mood Selection …………………………………………………………………..51 2.3.1 Tense-Aspect-Mood in Spanish ………………………………………………..52 2.3.2 Optionality in the Selection of Mood………………………………………….56 2.3.3 Previous Pragmatic and Semantic Accounts of Mood in Spanish …………..60 2.3.4 An Alternative to ‘Individual-Level’ Analyses of Mood ……………………..62 2.4 Intersentential Spanish-English Code-Switching ………………………………………63 2.4.1 The Early Days ………………………………………………………………....64 2.4.2 Linguistic Research on Code-Switching ……………………………………....65 2.4.3 Sequential Approaches to Code-Switching: Restricting the Sequential Context ………………………………………………………………………….69 2.5 Concluding Remarks …………………………………………………………………….70 3 Conversation Analysis (CA): Theory and Method ………………………………………….72 3.1 A Bit of History: Building a Theory of Action………………………………………....73 3.1.1 Making the Connection: Individual to Community ………………………….74 3.1.2 Rules and Norms: Normative vs. Interpretive Paradigms …………………...75 3.2 Bringing Theory to the ‘Ground Level’ ………………………………………………...77 vii 3.2.1 Garfinkel and Ethnomethodology …………………………………………….77 3.2.2 Goffman and the Interaction Order …………………………………………...82 3.2.3 Theoretical Répris ……………………………………………………………...85 3.3 Systematic Microanalysis: The Birth of Conversation Analysis ……………………...86 3.4 Examining Interaction: Conversation Analysis as a Method ………………………....87 3.4.1 The Why that now? Question …………………………………………………...88 3.4.2 Sequential Organization and ‘Nextness’ in Interaction ……………………...94 3.4.3 Demonstrable Relevance in Interaction……………………………………….96 3.5 Concluding Remarks: Language, Identity, and Action ………………………………..99 4 2nd-Person Singular (You) Person Reference: Tú, Vos, Usted……………………………...101 4.1 Person Reference in Interaction ……………………………………………………….104 4.2 Répris: Linguistic Background on Spanish …………………………………………...106 4.3 Data and Discussion …………………………………………………………………...110 4.3.1 Institutional Talk ……………………………………………………..............111 4.3.2 Everyday Talk ………………………………………………………………....125 4.4 Summary and Discussion ……………………………………………………………...143 4.5 Conclusions and Avenues for Future Research ……………………………………....147 5 Verbal Mood Selection: Indicative vs. Subjunctive Morphology…………………………150 5.1 Modality in Interaction …………………………………………………………..........151 5.1.1 Linguistic Resources for Expressing Modality …………………...………....151 5.1.2 Epistemic Modality …………………………………………………………...154 5.2 Modality in Spanish…………………………………………………………………….155 5.2.1 Linguistic Background ………………………………………………………..155 viii 5.2.2 A Brief Note on Dialectal Variation and its Implications for Analysis…….160 5.3 Verbal Morphology and Social Action ………………………………………………..161 5.3.1 Realis vs. Irrealis as Epistemic Resources …………………………………….161 5.3.2 Realis vs. Irrealis in Sequences of Action ……………………………………..169 5.3.3 Realis vs. Irrealis as a Practice: The Case of Question Design ……………....180 5.4 Summary and Discussion ……………………………………………………………...193 5.5 Conclusions and Avenues for Future Research ……………………………………....197 6 Intersentential Spanish-English Code-Switching ………………………………………….199 6.1 Sequential Approaches to Code-Switching …………………………………………...201 6.2 Epistemological Considerations: “Doing Being Bilingual” ………………………….202 6.3 Data for the Present Analysis ………………………………………………………….205 6.3.1 Restricting the Participants …………………………………………………...205 6.3.2 Restricting the “Now” in “Why That (Switch) Now” ……………………...206 6.4 Sequence Structure in Interaction: First and Second Position ……………………….207 6.5 Code-Switching in Second Position …………………………………………………...212