Andrea Pizarro Pedraza

Pragmemes in the sociolinguistic interview: a case study on expanded polar answers

This chapter explores the applicability of the pragmeme framework (Mey 2001; Capone 2005; Allan 2010) to sociolinguistic interviews. It presents an analysis in terms of frequency of speakers’ answers to the same sequence of questions – specifically, polar questions – in a set of interviews in Spanish. The results show that, rather than a single polar element, most of the interviewees give an expanded polar answer, although the place of this expansion and the very presence or absence of an initial polar element may vary. The paper argues that the “expanded polar answer” is an interactional pragmeme with a dyadic nature. Due to the conventional common scene (Ranciere 1995, in Mey 2001) of the interview itself, the pragmeme is made relevant by the requirements of the situation, where the interviewee is supposed to provide information. It presents four allopracts more or less central in the category according to the presence of certain formal elements.

Variación semántica y significado social: hacia una sociolingüística cognitiva de la Tercera Ola

Two key elements reveal a step change in Sociolinguistics towards a more flexible perspective: the study of semantic variation and the inclusion of microsociological variables. This article is a theoretical proposal to combine the two perspectives that are responsible for this change: respectively, Cognitive Sociolinguistics and the Third Wave of Variation Studies. The theoretical connections between the two are located and the program for a Third Wave Cognitive Sociolinguistics is exposed. Combining objectives, methods and tools, this paper emphasizes the need to investigate how semantic variation creates social meaning. Unlike cognitive sociolinguistic works so far, the proposal defendes a “more sociolinguistic” perspective, both in data collection and in the interpretation of the meaning of variation for speakers as social agents, as in the Third Wave.