Chapter 2
Politics, variation, and politeness on Andalusian Twitter
(X)
The second-person plural in Peninsular Spanish identity
construction
This study focuses on sociolinguistic variation
and politeness on the social media platform Twitter (X) to track the
decline in the second person plural ustedes form
among politicians in southern and northern-central Spain. An
analysis of politeness in computer-mediated communication (CMC)
identified pragmatic differences across politicians and showed how
second-person plural variation plays a role in politeness and
regional identity work. The study found that the use of impoliteness
on social media is on the rise, while use of
ustedes is low and used in specific contexts.
From a variationist perspective, impoliteness correlates with
ustedes use against political opponents, and
shows that politicians employ this form as a means of creating
social distance between themselves and rivals.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Previous literature
- 2.1Politeness and computer-mediated contexts
- 2.2Style-shifting and political speech
- 2.3The second-person plural and Andalusian Spanish
- 2.4Research questions
- 3.Methodology
- 3.1Politicians on Twitter (X)
- 3.2Second-person plural selection and politeness coding
- 3.3Variable selection and data analysis
- 4.Results
- 5.Discussion
- 5.1Second person plural form selection
- 5.2Factors conditioning second-person plural selection
and politeness realization
- 6.Conclusion
-
Notes
-
References