Article published In: Revue Romane
Vol. 59:2 (2024) ► pp.321–335
Articles linguistiques
Geographic variation of voseo and tuteo on X (Twitter) with a consideration of mixing cases (vos puedes)
Published online: 29 August 2024
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.23006.kel
https://doi.org/10.1075/rro.23006.kel
Abstract
This article explores a new data source and a new method to analyze the spatial distribution of a well-known case
of linguistic variation in Spanish, namely the use of personal pronouns in informal address also known as voseo
and tuteo. The data source is the social media X, previously Twitter, and more precisely the geolocated
textmessages, that is, messages associated with a precise location information. Previous analyses of the spatial distribution of
voseo and tuteo in the literature focus more on the distribution of standard agreement forms
of voseo/tuteo on the country scale and less on the city scale and they are mostly based on qualitative or on
quantitative research with a small dataset. The present study focusses on the distribution of voseo and
tuteo on a city scale on a bigger dataset than the dataset used in previous studies and it also takes mixed
agreement cases into account such as tú podés instead of standard agreement tú puedes. The
spatial distribution of voseo and tuteo on a city scale in the present use of
voseo and tuteo in Argentina shows traces of historical origin of voseo and
tuteo distribution in this country and some mixing cases more often occur in big cities, which might indicate
that these mixing cases are socially higher marked.
Keywords: voseo, tuteo, geographic distribution, mixing agreement, cities, methodological discussion
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Basics about X
- 3.Geographic distribution of voseo and tuteo
- 3.1Relative frequency count
- 3.2Differential distribution
- 4.Summary and discussion
- Notes
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