Cover not available
Part of
Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change: Spanish across space and time
Edited by Jeremy King and Sandro Sessarego
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 340] 2018
► pp. 223–245

Chapter 10
Stable variation or change in progress? A sociolinguistic analysis of pa(ra) in the Spanish of Venezuela

Sociolinguistic analyses of pa(ra) “for” have found that both linguistic and social factors play a significant role in speaker use of the reduced (pa’) and full (para) forms (e.g., Bentivoglio et al. 2005). However, no study to date has analyzed the extent to which production of these forms is most indicative of stable variation or a change in progress. The current study investigates 160 interviews conducted with speakers from Caracas, Venezuela and offers a comprehensive analysis of the variables of socioeconomic class, age, gender, and style in order to determine whether pa(ra) is best considered a stable variable or a change in progress in this speech community. Results indicate that the reduction of para lacks the hallmarks typical of linguistic change in progress.

Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background literature
    • 2.1Determining patterns of stable variation vs. language change
    • 2.2Background on pa ~ para
    • 2.3Questions of the current investigation
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Results
  • 5.Discussion
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 March 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.340.11faf
References
Bailey, Guy, Tom Wikle, Jan Tillery, & Lori Sand
1991 “The Apparent Time Construct”. Language Variation and Change 3:3.241–264. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Barrios, Graciela
2012 “Marcadores sociolingüísticos y prescripción idiomática”. Revista Digital de Políticas Lingüísticas 4:4. Retrieved from [URL].
Beardsley, Wilfred A.
1921 Infinitive Constructions in Old Spanish. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Bedinghaus, Rob
2013 “ ¿Vas pa(ra) Málaga? The Reduction of para in Málaga, Spain: Effects of Frequency, Syntactic Category, and Social Factors”. Selected Proceedings of the 16th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium ed. by Jennifer Cabrelli Amaro, Gillian Lord, Ana de Prada Pérez & Jessi Elana Aaron, 238–252. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Bell, Allan
1984 “Language Style as Audience Design”. Language in Society 13:2.145–204. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1997 “Language Style as Audience Design”. Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook ed. by Nikolas Coupland & Adam Jaworski, 240–250. Basingstoke: Macmillan. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bentivoglio, Paola, Kristel Guirado, & Guillermina Suárez
2005 “La variación entre para y pa en el habla de Caracas”. Estudios de Dialectología, Lexicografía, Lingüística General, Etnolingüística e Historia Cultural ed. by Mariano Lozano Ramírez, 214–237. Bogotá: Instituto Caro Cuervo.Google Scholar
Bentivoglio, Paola & Mercedes Sedano
1993 “Investigación sociolingüística: Sus métodos aplicados a una experiencia venezolana”. Boletín de Lingüística 8.3–35.Google Scholar
Cedergren, Henrietta C.J.
1973 The Interplay of Social and Linguistic Factors in Panama. Ph.D. dissertation, ornell University.Google Scholar
Chambers, J.K.
1995 Sociolinguistic Theory: Linguistic Variation and its Social Significance. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2002 “Patterns of Variation Including Change”. The Handbook of Language Variation and Change ed. by J.K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill & Natalie Schilling-Estes, 349–372. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Chang, Charles B.
2008 “Variation in Palatal Production in Buenos Aires Spanish”. Selected Proceedings of the 4th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Maurice Westmoreland & Juan Antonio Thomas, 54–63. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla Proceedings Project.Google Scholar
Contasti, Max
1980 “Metodología para la medición del nivel socioeconómico para la población venezolana”. Boletín de la Asociación Venezolana de Psicología Social 3:2.13–17.Google Scholar
Coupland, Nikolas
2007 Style: Language Variation and Identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
D’Arcy, Alexandra
2013 “Variation and Change”. The Oxford Handbook of Sociolinguistics ed. by Robert Bayley, Richard Cameron & Ceil Lucas, 484–502. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Davies, Mark
2002–. Corpus del Español. Retrieved from [URL].
Díaz-Campos, Manuel, Stephen Fafulas & Michael Gradoville
2011 “Going Retro: An Analysis of the Interplay between Socioeconomic Class and Age in Caracas Spanish”. Selected Proceedings of the 5th Workshop on Spanish Sociolinguistics ed. by Jim Michnowicz & Robin Dodsworth, 65–78. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
2012 “Variable Degrees of Constituency: Frequency Effects in the Alternation of pa vs. para in Spoken Discourse”. Selected Proceedings of the 14th Hispanic Linguistics Symposium ed. by Manuel Díaz-Campos & Kimberly Geeslin, 75–87. Somerville, Mass.: Cascadilla.Google Scholar
Díaz-Campos, Manuel & Kimberly Geeslin
2011 “Copula Use in the Spanish of Venezuela: Social and Linguistic Sources of Variation”. Spanish in Context 8:1.73–94. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Díaz-Campos, Manuel & Jason Killam
2012 “Assessing Language Attitudes through a Matched-Guise Experiment: The Case of Consonantal Deletion in Venezuelan Spanish”. Hispania 95:1.83–102.Google Scholar
File-Muriel, Richard J.
2007 The Role of Lexical Frequency and Phonetic Context in the Weakening of Syllable-Final Lexical /s/ in the Spanish of Barranquilla, Colombia. Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Fontanella de Weinberg & María Beatriz
1979 Dinámica social de un cambio lingüístico. Mexico City: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
García, Maryellen
1979 “ Pa(ra) Usage in United States Spanish”. Hispania 62:1.106–114. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gelman, Andrew & Jennifer Hill
2007 Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gradoville, Michael
2014 A Comparative Usage-Based Approach to the Reduction of the Spanish and Portuguese Preposition para . Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University.Google Scholar
Guirado, Kristel
2007 “¿Pa donde va a agarra?: La alternancia para-pa en tres comunidades de habla venezolana”. Interlinguistica 17.455–464.Google Scholar
Hanssen, Federico
1913 Gramática histórica de la lengua castellana. Halle: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Hernández Campoy, Juan Manuel, & José María Jiménez Cano
2003 “Broadcasting Standardization: An Analysis of the Linguistic Normalization Process in Murcia”. Journal of Sociolinguistics 7:3.321–347. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Henríquez Ureña, Pedro
1940 El español en Santo Domingo, vol. 5. Buenos Aires: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad de Buenos Aires, Instituto de Filología.Google Scholar
Hidalgo, Margarita
2016 Diversification of Mexican Spanish. A Tridimensional Study in New World Sociolinguistics. Berlin, Boston:De Gruyter Mouton. Retrieved 17 Oct. 2017, from [URL]. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Holmquist, Jonathan
1985 “Social Correlates of a Linguistic Variable: A Study in a Spanish Village”. Language in Society 14:2.192–203. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
1964a “Phonological Correlates of Social Stratification”. American Anthropologist 66:6.164–176. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
1964b “Stages in the Acquisition of Standard English”. Social Dialects and Language Learning ed. by Roger Shuy, Alva Davis & Robert Hogan, 77–104. Champaign: National Council of Teachers of English.Google Scholar
1966 The Social Stratification of English in New York City. Washington: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
1972 Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
1984 “Field Methods of the Project on Linguistic Change and Variation”. Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics ed. by John Baugh & Joel Sherzer, 28–53. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.Google Scholar
1994 Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
2001a “The Anatomy of Style-Shifting”. Style and Sociolinguistic Variation ed. by Penelope Eckert & John R. Rickford, 85–108. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
2001b Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Lafford, Barbara
1986 “Valor diagnóstico-social del uso de ciertas variantes de /s/ en el español de Cartagena, Colombia”. Estudios Sobre la Fonología del Español del Caribe ed. by Rafael A. Nuñez-Cedeño, Iraset Paez Urdaneta & Jorge M. Guitart, 53–75. Caracas: La Casa de Bello.Google Scholar
Lapesa, Rafael
1981 Historia de la lengua española. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Lathrop, Tom A.
1996 The Evolution of Spanish. 3rd ed. Newark, Del.: Juan de la Cuesta.Google Scholar
Menéndez Pidal, Ramón
1962 Manual de gramática histórica española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.Google Scholar
Monlau, Pedro Felipe
1881 Diccionario etimológico de la lengua castellana. 2nd ed. Madrid: Aribau.Google Scholar
Otheguy, Ricardo, Ana Celia Zentella & David Livert
2007 “Language and Dialect Contact in Spanish in New York: Toward the Formation of a Speech Community”. Language 83:4.770–802. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Penny, Ralph
1991 A History of the Spanish Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Pietsch, Karl
1911 “Zur Spanischen Grammatik (II)”. Zeitschrift für Romanische Philologie 35.167–179. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Poplack, Shana
1980 “Deletion and Disambiguation in Puerto Rican Spanish”. Language 56:2.371–385. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
R Core Team
2014 R: A Language and Environment for Statistical Computing. Vienna: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Retrieved from [URL].
Rohena-Madrazo, Marcos
2011 Sociophonetic Variation in the Production and Perception of Obstruent Voicing in Buenos Aires Spanish. Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian
2006 “Age: Apparent Time and Real Time”. Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics ed. by Keith Brown, 110–116. Oxford: Elsevier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian & Hélène Blondeau
2007 “Language Change Across the Lifespan: /r/ in Montreal French”. Language 83:3.560–588. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sankoff, Gillian & Suzanne E. Wagner
2006 “Age-Grading in Retrograde Movement: The Inflected Future in Montréal French”. University of Pennsylvania Working Papers in Linguistics 12:2.201–216.Google Scholar
Schilling-Estes, Natalie
2002 “Investigating Stylistic Variation”. The Handbook of Language, Variation and Change ed. by J.K. Chambers, Peter Trudgill & Natalie Schilling-Estes, 375–401. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Silva-Corvalán, Carmen
1986 “Bilingualism and Language Change: The Extension of estar in Los Angeles Spanish”. Language 62:3.587–608. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tagliamonte, Sali A.
2011 Variationist Sociolinguistics: Change, Observation, Interpretation. Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar
Weinreich, Uriel, William Labov & Marvin Herzog
1968 “Empirical Foundations for a Theory of Language Change”. Directions for Historical Linguistics ed. by Winfred Lehman & Yakov Malkiel, 97–195. Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Wolf, Clara
1984 “Tiempo real y tiempo aparente en el estudio de una variación lingüística: Ensordecimiento y sonorización del yeísmo porteño”. Homenaje a Ana María Barrenechea ed. by Lía Schwartz Lerner & Isaías Lerner, 175–196. Madrid: Editorial Castalia.Google Scholar
Zamora Vicente, A.
1970 Dialectología española. Madrid: Gredos.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 3 other publications

Pollock, Matthew
2023. Toeing the Party Line: Indexicality and Regional Andalusian Phonetic Features in Political Speech. Languages 8:3 ► pp. 196 ff. DOI logo
Rodríguez-Ordóñez, Itxaso, Shannon McCrocklin & Alejandra Tiburcio
2023. Spanglish and Tex-Mex in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas. Spanish in Context 20:1 ► pp. 50 ff. DOI logo
Waltermire, Mark & Michael Gradoville
2020. Chapter 10. The interaction of social factors in the acoustically gradient realization of intervocalic /d/ in Border Uruguayan Spanish. In Spanish Phonetics and Phonology in Contact [Issues in Hispanic and Lusophone Linguistics, 28], ► pp. 263 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 22 april 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.