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Chapter 6. Hasta perder la última gota de mi sangre

Variation in commissive speech act behavior in Colonial Louisiana Spanish
  • Jeremy King
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Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change
This chapter is in the book Language Variation and Contact-Induced Change

Abstract

In spite of the recent burgeoning of the field of Spanish socio-pragmatics, the category of commissive speech acts has been all but ignored in scholarship, particularly in contact varieties of the language. Colonial Louisiana presents an ideal context for this type of work. The analysis herein involves a corpus of 100 business letters between Spanish government and military officials in 18th century Louisiana. All commissive speech acts were identified and coded according to a modified version of the taxonomy presented in Bilbow (2002). Results of the study reveal that the level of power of the speaker (= letter writer) proved to be the most significant factor in the formulation of commissives. The level of relative power of a speaker appeared to guide not only the general type of commissives employed (e.g., promises vs. offers) but also the specific morphological expression of the speech act (e.g., future vs. present tense).

Abstract

In spite of the recent burgeoning of the field of Spanish socio-pragmatics, the category of commissive speech acts has been all but ignored in scholarship, particularly in contact varieties of the language. Colonial Louisiana presents an ideal context for this type of work. The analysis herein involves a corpus of 100 business letters between Spanish government and military officials in 18th century Louisiana. All commissive speech acts were identified and coded according to a modified version of the taxonomy presented in Bilbow (2002). Results of the study reveal that the level of power of the speaker (= letter writer) proved to be the most significant factor in the formulation of commissives. The level of relative power of a speaker appeared to guide not only the general type of commissives employed (e.g., promises vs. offers) but also the specific morphological expression of the speech act (e.g., future vs. present tense).

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Population migration and contact-induced language change
  5. Chapter 1. Spatial reconfigurations of Spanish in postmodernity 11
  6. Chapter 2. Female migration and its impact on language choice and use among Afro-Costa Rican women 35
  7. Chapter 3. Hard come, easy go 63
  8. Part II. Internal and external factors in pragmatic variation
  9. Chapter 4. Afro-Hispanic contact varieties at the syntax/pragmatics interface 85
  10. Chapter 5. Borrowed Spanish discourse markers in narrative 111
  11. Chapter 6. Hasta perder la última gota de mi sangre 127
  12. Chapter 7. Discourse markers in variation 153
  13. Part III. Morphosyntactic variation and change
  14. Chapter 8. Yo no le conocí a mi abuela 175
  15. Chapter 9. Attitudes toward morphosyntactic variation in the Spanish of Valencian speakers 199
  16. Chapter 10. Stable variation or change in progress? A sociolinguistic analysis of pa(ra) in the Spanish of Venezuela 223
  17. Part IV. Current issues in bilingual variation
  18. Chapter 11. El futuro es perifrástico 249
  19. Chapter 12. L2 Spanish in the U.S. and the question of motivation 279
  20. Chapter 13. Espero estén todos 299
  21. Index 335
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.340.07kin

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Introduction 1
  4. Part I. Population migration and contact-induced language change
  5. Chapter 1. Spatial reconfigurations of Spanish in postmodernity 11
  6. Chapter 2. Female migration and its impact on language choice and use among Afro-Costa Rican women 35
  7. Chapter 3. Hard come, easy go 63
  8. Part II. Internal and external factors in pragmatic variation
  9. Chapter 4. Afro-Hispanic contact varieties at the syntax/pragmatics interface 85
  10. Chapter 5. Borrowed Spanish discourse markers in narrative 111
  11. Chapter 6. Hasta perder la última gota de mi sangre 127
  12. Chapter 7. Discourse markers in variation 153
  13. Part III. Morphosyntactic variation and change
  14. Chapter 8. Yo no le conocí a mi abuela 175
  15. Chapter 9. Attitudes toward morphosyntactic variation in the Spanish of Valencian speakers 199
  16. Chapter 10. Stable variation or change in progress? A sociolinguistic analysis of pa(ra) in the Spanish of Venezuela 223
  17. Part IV. Current issues in bilingual variation
  18. Chapter 11. El futuro es perifrástico 249
  19. Chapter 12. L2 Spanish in the U.S. and the question of motivation 279
  20. Chapter 13. Espero estén todos 299
  21. Index 335
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