© 2017 Jeriel Melgares Sabillón
© 2017 Jeriel Melgares Sabillón EXPLORING THE CONFLUENCE OF CONFIANZA AND NATIONAL IDENTITY IN HONDURAN VOSEO: A SOCIOPRAGMATIC ANALYSIS BY JERIEL MELGARES SABILLÓN DISSERTATION Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Spanish in the Graduate College of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2017 Urbana, Illinois Doctoral Committee: Associate Professor Anna María Escobar, Co-Chair Professor Marina Terkourafi, Leiden University, Co-Director Professor Rakesh M. Bhatt Professor Eyamba Bokamba ii ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the dynamics of language variation and the process of language change from a Speaker-based approach (cp. Weinreich, Labov, & Herzog, 1968) through the analysis of a linguistic feature that has received much scholarly attention, namely, Spanish pronominal forms of address (see PRESEEA project), in an understudied variety: Honduran Spanish. Previous studies, as sparse as they are, have proposed that the system of singular forms in this variety comprises a set of three forms for familiar/informal address—vos, tú, and usted—and a sole polite/formal form, usted (Castro, 2000; Hernández Torres, 2013; Melgares, 2014). In order to empirically explore this system and detect any changes in progress within it, a model typical of address research in Spanish was adopted by examining pronoun use between interlocutors in specific types of relationships (e.g. parent- child or between friends). This investigation, however, takes this model further by also analyzing the attitudes Honduran speakers exhibit toward the forms in connection to their Honduran identity, while adopting Billig’s (1995) theory of ‘banal nationalism’—the (re)production of national identity through daily social practices—, and as a corollary, their spontaneous pronoun production, following Terkourafi’s (2001; 2004) frame-based approach.
[Show full text]