Cover not available

In:Language Change in the 20th Century: Exploring micro-diachronic evolutions in Romance languages
Edited by Salvador Pons Bordería and Shima Salameh Jiménez
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 340] 2024
► pp. 158–187

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Chapter 5
Social indexicality and pragmatic change in the late 20th century

Cioè and tipo in Italian radio phone-ins

 | University of Bergamo
Published online: 5 January 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.340.05ghe
Abstract
This paper considers the role of social indexicality in the pragmatic development of Italian cioè ‘that is’ and tipo ‘type’ in the second half of the 20th century. It analyses listeners’ phone-ins to a radio station gathered in 1976 and in 2010, together with questionnaires on speakers’ attitudes regarding the use of cioè and tipo. Firstly, it describes the pragmatic trajectory of the two forms. Secondly, it discusses how their frequencies and polyfunctionality are subject to rapid changes, and how these changes are propelled by the social indexicality acquired by the forms. The development of these indexicalities benefits from the technological innovations of the 20th century, which have a relevant role in the spread of speakers’ interactive practices.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Discourse style and social meaning
  • 3.Corpus and methodology
  • 4.Pragmatic functions of cioè and tipo
    • 4.1Pragmatic functions of cioè
    • 4.2Pragmatic functions of tipo
  • 5.Distribution of cioè and tipo and speakers’ attitudes
    • 5.1Distribution of cioè and tipo
    • 5.2Speakers’ attitudes
  • 6.Discussion and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (58)
References
Agha, Asif. 2006. Language and Social Relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Androutsopoulos, Jannis. 2014. “Languaging when contexts collapse: Audience design in social networking.” Discourse, Context & Media 4: 62–73. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Atzori, Enrico. 2003. “La lingua della radio.” In La lingua italiana e i mass media, a c. di Ilaria Bonomi e, Silvia Morgana, 33–66. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail M. 1981. The Dialogic Imagination. (trans. by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist). Texas: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bartezzaghi, Stefano. 2010. Non se ne può più. Il libro dei tormentoni. Milano: Mondadori.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazzanella, Carla. 1995. “I segnali discorsivi.” In Grande grammatica italiana di consultazione. III Tipi di frase, deissi, formazione delle parole, a c. di Lorenzo Renzi, Giampaolo Salvi e, Anna Cardinaletti, 225–257. Bologna: Il Mulino.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beeching, Kate. 2007. “A politeness-theoretic approach to pragmatico-semantic change.” Journal of Historical Pragmatics 8: 69–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Pragmatic Markers in British English: Meaning in Social Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berruto, Gaetano. 1987. Sociolinguistica dell’italiano contemporaneo. Roma: Carocci.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Blommaert, Jan. 2005. Discourse: A Critical Introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas. 2007. Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Sociolinguistic change, vernacularization and broadcast British media.” Mediatization and sociolinguistic change 2: 67–96. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crible, Ludivine, and Elena Pascual. 2020. “Combinations of discourse markers with repairs and repetitions in English, French and Spanish.” Journal of Pragmatics 156: 54–67. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cutting, Joan. 2007. “‘Doing More Stuff – Where’s It Going?’: Exploring Vague Language Further.” In Vague Language Explored, ed. by Joan Cutting, 223–243. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dal Negro, Silvia, and Ilaria Fiorentini. 2014. “Reformulation in Bilingual Speech: Italian cioè in German and Ladin.” Journal of Pragmatics 74: 94–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dardano, Maurizio. 1997. “La lingua dei media.” In Storia della stampa italiana, vol. 7º, La stampa italiana nell’età della TV (1975–1994), a c. di Valerio Castronovo, e Nicola Tranfaglia, 207–235. Roma/Bari: Laterza.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope. 1997. “Age as a sociolinguistic variable.” In The Handbook of Sociolinguistics, ed. by Florian Coulmas, 151–167. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Elephants in the Room.” Journal of sociolinguistics 7 (3): 392–397. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2019. “The limits of meaning: Social indexicality, variation, and the cline of interiority.” Language 95 (4): 751–776. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ferrentino, Sergio. 2006. Vedi alla voce Radio Popolare. Milano: Garzanti.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Garrett, Peter, Nikolas Coupland, and Angie Williams. 2003. “Attitude Scales and ‘Social Advantage’ Items.” In Investigating Language Attitudes: Social Meanings of Dialect, Ethnicity and Performance ed. by Peter Garrett, Nikolas Coupland, and Angie Williams, 128–47. Cardiff: University of Wales Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ghezzi, Chiara. 2018. Constellation of indexicalities and social meaning. In Positioning the Self and Others: Linguistic perspectives ed. by Kate Beeching, Chiara Ghezzi, and Piera Molinelli, 197–218. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2022. Vagueness Markers in Contemporary Italian: Age variation and pragmatic change. Milano: Franco Angeli.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goffman, Erving. 1986. Frame Analysis: An essay on the organization of experience. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goldoni, Luca. 1977. Cioè. Milano: Mondadori.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Grupo Val.Es.Co. 2003. “Las unidades del discurso oral. La propuesta Val.Es.Co. de segmentacion de la conversacion (coloquial).” Estudios de Lingüística del Español 35: 13–73.
Gumperz, John J. 1982. Discourse Strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hjelmslev, Louis. [1943] 1969. Prolegomena to a Theory of Language. Baltimore: Indiana University publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hodder, Ian. 1982. The present past – an introduction to antropology for archeologists. London: Batsford.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Honey, John. 2007. “Sociophonology.” In The Handbook of Sociolinguistics ed. by Florian Coulmas, 65–74. London: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2016. “Enregisterment: How linguistic items become linked with ways of speaking.” Language and Linguistics Compass 10 (11): 632–643. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, Jennifer Andrus, and Andrew E. Danielson. 2006. “Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of ‘Pittsburghese’.” Journal of English Linguistics 34 (2): 77–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jørgensen, Normann J. 2010. Love ya hate ya: The Sociolinguistic Study of Youth Language and Youth Identities. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, Wiltrud Mihatsch, and Stefan Schneider (eds). 2010. New Approaches to Hedging. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kirchner, Ruth and Lena Zipp. 2022. Research Methods in Language Attitudes. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lambert, Wallace E., et al.. 1960. “Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.” The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 60, (1): 44–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Manzotti, Emilio. 1999. “Spiegazione, riformulazione, correzione, alternativa. Sulla semantica di alcuni tipi e segnali di parafrasi.” In Parafrasi. Dalla ricerca linguistica alla ricerca psicolinguistica, a c. di Bice Mortara Garavelli, e Lucia Lumbelli, 169–206. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mortensen, Janus, Nikolas Coupland, and Jacob Thøgersen. 2017. Style, Mediation, and Change. Sociolinguistic perspectives on talking media. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Niedzielski, Nancy A., and Denny R. Preston. 2000. Folk linguistics (Vol. 122). Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
O’Keeffe, Anne. 2004. “‘Like the Wise Virgins and All that Jazz’: Using a Corpus to Examine Vague Categorization and Shared Knowledge.” Language and Computers 52: 1–20. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ortoleva, Peppino. 1994. “La cavalleria leggera della comunicazione.” In La radio che non c’è. Settant’anni, un grande futuro a c. di Franco Monteleone, 17–29. Roma: Donzelli.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pons Bordería, Salvador. 2014. “Paths of pragmaticalization in Spanish o sea.” In Pragmatic and Discourse Markers from Latin to the Romance Languages ed. by Chiara Ghezzi, and Piera Molinelli, 108–135. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rampton, Ben. 2006. Language in Late Modernity: Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rossari, Corinne. 1994. Les opérations de reformulation. Analyse du processus et des marques dans une perspective contrastive français – italien. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rymes, Betsy. 2014. Marking communicative repertoire through metacommentary. In Heteroglossia as Practice and Pedagogy ed. by Adrian Blackledge, and Angela Creese, 301–316. Dordrecht: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sabatini, Francesco. 1982. “La comunicazione orale, scritta e trasmessa: le differenze del mezzo, della lingua e delle funzioni.” In Educazione linguistica nella Scuola superiore a c. di Anna Maria Boccafurni, e Simonetta Serromani, 103–127. Roma: Provincia di Roma e Istituto di Psicologia del CNR.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Micheal. 2003. “Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life.” Language and Communication 23, (4): 93–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Pragmatic Indexing. In Concise Encyclopedia of Pragmatics ed. by Jacob L. Mey, 756–759. Oxford: Elsevier.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spitzmüller, Jürgen. 2015. “Graphic Variation and Graphic Ideologies: A Metapragmatic Approach.” Social Semiotics 25 (2): 126–141. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A., and Chris Roberts. 2005. “So weird, so cool so innovative: The use of intensifiers in the television series Friends.” American Speech 80: 280–300. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trudgill, Peter. 2014. “Diffusion, drift, and the irrelevance of media influence.” Journal of Sociolinguistics, 18, (2): 213–222. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Voghera, Miriam. 2013a. “Tipi di tipo nel parlato e nello scritto.” In Di Linguistica e di Sociolinguistica, Studi offerti a Norbert Dittmar a c. di Immacolata Tempesta, e Massimo Vedovelli, 185–195. Roma: Bulzoni.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013b. “A Case study on the Relationship between Grammatical Change and Synchronic Variation: the Emergence of tipo[-N] in Italian.” In Synchrony and Diachrony: A dynamic interface ed. by Anna Giacalone Ramat, Cateriana Mauri, and Piera Molinelli, 283–312. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Da nome tassonomico a segnale discorsivo: una mappa delle costruzioni di tipo in italiano contemporaneo.” Studi di grammatica italiana 23: 197–221.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “La nascita delle costruzioni non nominali di specie, genere, sorta e tipo: uno studio basato su corpora.” In Per la storia della formazione delle parole in italiano. Un nuovo corpus in rete (MIDIA) e nuove prospettive di studio a c. di Paolo D’Achille & Maria Grossmann, 277–307. Milano: Franco Cesati.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, Angie, and Jon Nussbaum. 2001. Intergenerational Communication Across the Life Span. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Woolard, Kathryn. 2011. “Is there linguistic life after high school? Longitudinal changes in the bilingual repertoire in metropolitan Barcelona.” Language in Society 40, (5): 617–648. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue