CURRENT PROJECT
Title: Socio-stylistic, idiolectal and discursive components in linguistic variation and change in Spanish: contributions from historical sociolinguistics.
Keywords: Historical sociolinguistics, language variation and change, textual genres, discursive traditions, idiolectal variation, Spanish.
Leading researcher: José Luis Blas Arroyo
Other researchers: Isabel Andúgar, Elia Puertas Ribés, Kim Schulte, Mónica Velando Casanovas and Javier Vellón Lahoz.
Name of the institution to which it belongs: Universitat Jaume I
Funding bodies: Agencia Estatal de Investigación and FEDER funds A way of doing Europe (Ref. PID2021-122597NB-I00)
Duration: from 1-10-2022 to 30-9-2026
Amount financed: 34,061.50 euros
Abstract:
This historical sociolinguistics project presents several objectives. Firstly, it represents the consolidation of a line of work initiated in three previous projects of excellence, with which we began the systematic study of various processes of linguistic variation and change in Spanish from the end of the 15th century to the present day. Through this approach to diachrony, we analyse the detailed evolution of these phenomena, paying attention not only to the frequent fluctuations in the use of each variant at each historical stage but also - and more importantly - to those that have taken place both in internal grammar and in extralinguistic conditioning. In addition to examining in depth some of the phenomena already reviewed, through the incursion into historical breaks and potentially unexplored factors, we will analyse others with a long history in Spanish and whose consequences, in some cases, are still being felt today.
A second aim of the project is to reflect on some theoretical implications derived from the results obtained, such as the pace of different types of linguistic change, the success (or failure) of changes from below or from above, the factors that may influence the different historical outcomes of similar variables, the influence of varietal and theoretical contact, such as accommodation and koineisation in specific outcomes of linguistic evolution, or the importance of individuals in the diffusion of change.
A novelty of the present project is the discursive perspective it introduces, with which we wish to empirically test the relations between linguistic change and discursive traditions situated at different points on the axis between communicative immediacy and distance. In this sense, we hope our research will illuminate important theoretical questions resolved from a qualitative rather than quantitative perspective. In short, it is a matter of providing answers to various questions, such as whether specific changes are activated with the same frequency in some discursive traditions as in others or whether, on the contrary, a particular direction is observed, either from the more formal to the more informal ones or in the opposite direction. Similarly, from a comparative perspective, it is interesting to see whether the structural factors regulating variation are essentially the same (and have the same explanatory direction) or whether significant differences exist between one textual genre and another.
In order to achieve these objectives, historical sociolinguistics and corpus linguistics are ideal tools because of the possibility they offer of carrying out studies in both real and apparent time. To this end, as well as continuing to work with texts close to the pole of communicative immediacy as the best means of approaching the vernacular language of past times for which we do not have oral testimonies, for comparative purposes, we will also take advantage of other diachronic corpora which include more formal discursive traditions.
