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Article published In: Spanish in Context
Vol. 21:3 (2024) ► pp.598–621

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Impersonal expressions in Texas Spanish

An analysis of sociopragmatic variation

ORCiD logo with link | Washington University in St. Louis
Published online: 16 January 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.21028.mil
Abstract
Impersonal expressions in Spanish are expressed in various forms, including use of impersonal se or with the indefinite uno and a third-person verb conjugation. Other forms of expression are becoming more frequent in both monolingual and bilingual contexts (Hurtado, Luz Marcela. 2015. “El predominio de uno en Bogotá, Colombia: ¿Estrategia para desfocalizar o para subjetivizar?” Anuario de Letras. Lingüística y Filología 3 (2):105–151. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Guirado, Krístel. 2011. “Uso impersonal de tú y uno en el habla de Caracas y otras ciudades.” Círculo de Lingüística Aplicada a La Comunicación 471: 3–27.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar; Morales, Ámparo. 1995. “The loss of the Spanish impersonal particle se among bilinguals: A descriptive profile.” In Spanish in the four continents: Studies in language contact and bilingualism, ed. by Carmen Silva-Corvalán, 148–162. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). The current study analyzes the forms of impersonal expression in three generations of eighteen total Spanish speakers in Texas. The pragmatic functions of first-person plural and second-person singular forms are analyzed based on their use for generalization, focalized generalization, speaker concealment, or inclusive defocalization (Pulido Astorga, Paulina, and Marcela Rivadeneira Valenzuela. 2017. “En la vida teníh que luchar para salir adelante. Variación pragmático-discursiva y sociolingüística en los usos no deícticos de la segunda persona del singular en el español de Chile.” Onomázein: Revista de Lingüística, Filología y Traducción 37 (3): 16–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Results demonstrate the wide usage of various reference impersonals, signaling deictic extension (Fernández, Susana. 2008. “Generalizaciones y evidencialidad en español.” Revue Romance, 43 (2): 217–234. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). Furthermore, complementary distribution of forms across discursive function was identified, demonstrating the need for a comprehensive consideration at the discourse-pragmatic level for all reference impersonal forms. This study represents an initial step in the pragmatic consideration of impersonal expressions in US Spanish.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Impersonality in Spanish
  • 3.Methodology
    • 3.1Participants
    • 3.2Sociolinguistic Interviews
    • 3.3Data selection, coding and analysis
  • 4.Results and discussion
    • 4.1Descriptive analysis
      • 4.1.1R-impersonal usage by generation
        • 4.1.1.2R-impersonal usage by gender
    • 4.2Pragmatic analysis of 2sg and 1pl forms
      • 4.2.1Generalization
      • 4.2.2Focalized generalization
      • 4.2.3Speaker concealment
      • 4.2.4Inclusive defocalization
    • 4.3Discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
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