Aspects of Spanish deictic expressions in Barcelona: A quantitative examination

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis sociolinguistic investigation analyzes an innovative usage of Spanish motion verbs, demonstratives, and locatives in Barcelona that involves crosslinguistic pragmatic transfer. Speakers in the two social networks examined (N= 58) use these Spanish deictics following pragmatic rules that generally correspond to the rules for their Catalan counterparts. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that this innovative usage of the Spanish deictics is not predictable from the lexical form of the deictic systems in both languages. Multiple regression analysis (SPSS) demonstrates that as relative exposure to Catalan increases so does the amount of innovative usage observed, although degree of integration into a Catalan social network and degree of Catalanist ideology do not affect such usage. Qualitatively, this innovative usage is a linguistic marker of a unique contact variety of Spanish spoken in Catalonia (i.e., Catalan Spanish). In this variety, such usage represents a potential resource for performing Catalan identity.