Examining Sociopragmatic Variation

Abstract

In the preceding chapters, we saw that the main bulk of the studies carried out in the sociopragmatics of Spanish has focused on the examination of particular phenomena (the realization of speech acts, aspects of the organization of conversation, politeness manifestations) in a variety of Spanish in contrast with another language, with English and Swedish constituting the contrasting languages par excellence. Contrastive studies of Spanish(es), however, have so far received considerably less attention and, in their vast majority, have only implicitly touched upon the notion of sociopragmatic variation (see, for example, the studies undertaken in Scandinavia, 5.2.2).