Syntactic variation and communicative style
Research highlights
► Variation in linguistic form always entails some parallel alteration in meaning. ► Formal variability configures perceptions of reality as diffuse and ever-changing. ► Linguistic choice aims to configure meaningful styles in interaction. ► All internal and external levels of meaning are connected under the concept of style. ► Cognitive notions like salience and informativity help explain syntactic phenomena.
Section snippets
Style and sociolinguistic structure
Style can be seen as the third component of sociolinguistic variation, aside from the linguistic and the social (Rickford and Eckert, 2001, p. 1). It is also the less homogeneous one, encompassing variation within the speaker as an individual and not (just) as a member of a speech community and/or social group. Stylistic variation is considered basic, though not exclusively individual in nature, and comprises the range of expressive possibilities whereby a speaker or group of speakers manage
Variation, meaning and cognition
From the preceding discussion it should be inferred that any further development of variationist research on morphosyntax will require approaching grammar from an eminently semantic perspective. This will mean setting aside the traditional requirement of descriptive or referential sameness and viewing differences in meaning as the way to explain the existence of formal variation (Aijón Oliva, 2006a, Aijón Oliva, 2006b, Serrano, 2010, Serrano, 2011). For this reason, we see current cognitivist
Variation in verbal clitics
Starting from Finegan and Biber’s (2001) approach to style as an effect of the functional communicative demands of the situation, it has been possible to confirm the relevance of stylistic factors on morphosyntactic variation, and specifically in the paradigm of Spanish verbal clitics as used in mass media language. Aijón Oliva, 2006a, Aijón Oliva, 2006b) assumes that it is not only the frequency of a formal variant that varies according to the situation, but also that of the internal and
Conclusions
In this paper we have argued for an approach to syntactic variation that takes into account both its cognitive foundations and the possibilities these offer for the creation of stylistic meanings in social interaction. Adopting a cognitive viewpoint along the lines exposed means accepting that whenever we speak we choose not only the form of a message, but also its content. When some linguistic structure is formulated instead of other possible ones, a particular orientation of the utterance is
Role of funding sources
Research project entitled: “Los estilos de comunicación y sus bases cognitivas en el estudio de la variación sintáctica en español” (FFI2009–07181/FILO), funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación.
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