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Article published In: Pragmatics
Vol. 18:3 (2008) ► pp.407–424

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Not so impersonal

Intentionality in the use of pronoun uno in contemporary Spanish political discourse

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Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) 4.0 license.
Published online: 1 September 2008
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https://doi.org/10.1075/prag.18.3.03gel
This paper combines quantitative and qualitative analyses in a corpus-based study of how and for what purposes politicians, in the context of the Spanish Parliament, use the impersonal pronoun uno ‘one’. I begin by contrasting how uno is used in parliamentary debate versus non-political language. After reviewing traditional definitions of the semantic range and general behavior of this pronoun, I argue that a more accurate account that the one provided by standard grammars is needed for us to better understand how the peculiar characteristics of a parliament affect intentionality in the use of impersonal pronouns. In particular, it is argued that uno is utilized by politicians to serve principally two purposes: 1) avoidance of bluntness - a means of preserving professional etiquette, and 2) avoidance of self- praise - demonstrative of humility. Both purposes serve the larger objective of preserving professional face.
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2016. Interpretación y tipología del pronombre indefinido uno a partir de tres géneros discursivos. Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a la Comunicación 67 ► pp. 227 ff. DOI logo
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[no author supplied]
2014. List of figures. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. ix ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. References. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 275 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter III. Discourse participant profiling beyond 
person deixis. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 153 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter I. General introduction. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. List of abbreviations. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xiii ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. List of tables. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xi ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Index. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 303 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter VI. Conclusions and prospects for further research. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 267 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter V. Discourse participant profiling. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 229 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter IV. Indeterminate constructions. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 187 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Chapter II. Person deixis. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. 21 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2014. Acknowledgements. In Profiling Discourse Participants [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 246], ► pp. xv ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. The Politics of Person Reference [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 320], DOI logo

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