Form and Meaning: Studies of Grammatical Variation and Communicative Choice in Spanish

by Gerd Wotjak (Editor), José Juan Batista Rodríguez (Editor), Dolores García Padrón (Editor), María José Serrano (Editor), Miguel Á. Aijón Oliva (Editor)

Overview

This book presents a state-of-the-art study of variation that considers meaning—in all its possible facets—as the key to scientific explanation. It brings together a group of international scholars whose work pursues the systematic integration of meaning and function in models of grammatical usage. After a foreword by the world-leading specialist Nikolas Coupland and a theoretical introduction by editors Miguel A. Aijón Oliva and María José Serrano, the seven empirical chapters focus on morphosyntactic phenomena in different varieties of Spanish, analyzing a wide range of discourse types and communicative domains, from sociolinguistic interviews to mass media and social network interactions. These studies offer a basis for the study of variation from similar viewpoints in other languages.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783631900994
Publisher:	Peter Lang GmbH, Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften
Publication date:	05/31/2024
Series:	Studien zur romanischen Sprachwissenschaft und interkulturellen Kommunikation , #193
Pages:	290
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.27(h) x (d)

About the Author

María José Serrano is a Full Professor of Linguistics at the Universidad de La Laguna (Spain). Her main areas of expertise include morphosyntactic variation from a discursive-pragmatic and cognitive approach, sociolinguistics and discourse analysis.

Miguel A. Aijón Oliva is a Professor of Spanish Linguistics at the Universidad de Salamanca (Spain). His research activity focuses on variation in grammar from functional and sociopragmatic viewpoints, particularly in mass media and digital environments.

Table of Contents

Nikolas Coupland: Foreword – Miguel A. Aijón Oliva/María José Serrano: Introduction: Variation, choice, and the construction of meaning – Antonio Fábregas: Variation, syntax, and semantics: Person features and the non- specific reading of participants – María José Serrano: Variation of the independent infinitive and the desubjectivizing viewpoint of discourse – Miguel A. Aijón Oliva: Defocusing constructions, viewpoint, and reference: The shaping of public institutions vs. citizens in digital opinion pieces – Benjamin Mielenz: Variation in hypothetical conditional structures in the Spanish of Astorga – Dania Ramos Martín: Subject position in Hispanic yes/ no interrogatives: A description according to utterance pragmatic function and geographical variation in a corpus of written speech – Francisco Javier García Yanes: A semantic approach to mood variation: Habitual and factual clauses introduced by después (de) que – Dunia Catalina Méndez Vallejo: Understanding the Focalizing Ser structure: Going beyond syntax.