Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech

Abstract

Performative style is an important sociolinguistic variable among politicians, who accomplish agentive goals through speech. Examining 32 Spanish politicians, this article focuses on four Andalusian Spanish phenomena: the fronting of /t͡ʃ/ and the deletion of coda /s/, resyllabified intervocalic onset /s/, and intervocalic /d/. The analysis first looks at overall community production norms for the variants then turns to examine the style-shifting patterns of one individual who deviates from these norms. This individual is examined through a consideration of lectal focusing in interaction to track moment-by-moment variation. While coda /s/ and intervocalic /d/ deletion show usage patterns governed by regional and contextual factors, the deletion of onset /s/ and fronted /t͡ʃ/ reflect social variation and style-shifting. While politicians do not blindly follow partisan norms, normative expectations exist at the regional level that they can choose to depart from due to individual motivations and political affiliation in order to carry out identity work. This study combines quantitative examinations of community and individual variation to contribute to our understanding of style-shifting behavior in political speech and how politicians use linguistic tools to take on oppositional identities in the public sphere.