Are you referring to me? The variable use of UNO and YO in oral discourse

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Journal of Pragmatics 41 (2009) 1810–1824 www.elsevier.com/locate/pragma

Are you referring to me? The variable use of UNO and YO in oral discourse Nydia Flores-Ferra´n * Graduate School of Education, Department of Learning and Teaching & Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Department of Spanish and Portuguese College Av. Campus, 10 Seminary Place, Office 229A, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, United States Received 19 February 2008; received in revised form 9 July 2008; accepted 18 September 2008

Abstract The variable use of UNO ‘one’ and YO ‘I’ is examined among several speakers of distinct Spanish varieties in New Jersey and New York. Based on a small-scale study, the findings here depart from the perspective that UNO ‘one’ is merely an indefinite and generic pronoun. An exhaustive examination of the linguistic contexts in which the so-called indefinite UNO appears indicates that it alternates with the first person, Yo, the second person specific and non-specific informal tu´, and deferential usted. This study centers on identifying several of the linguistic and social variables that mediate the use of UNO and examines the alternation between UNO and YO in two types of discourse: oral narratives of personal experience and therapeutic motivational interviews between a therapist and client. A finding among 12 bilingual speakers of the Puerto Rican, Mexican, Dominican, Colombian, Cuban and Uruguayan Spanish varieties suggests that the varying alternations between and UNO and YO are conditioned by discoursepragmatic and social variables, not by the speaker’s distinct Spanish variety. The study reveals among other findings that the use of UNO is conditioned by the semantic clause type, the semantic verb type, the speakers’ age, and discourse type. # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Indefinite ‘one’; Spanish UNO; Variation UNO and YO

1. Introduction When referring to ‘self’, speakers typically use the first subject person pronoun yo ‘I’, nosotros ‘we’, or uno ‘one’. An examination of the linguistic contexts in which UNO appears points to the fact that it alternates with first person YO. However, unlike YO, UNO may also have an identifiable referent that is outside the context of the proposition. Namely, its referent can be exophoric such as a collective that does not include the speaker or hearer. In their influential research on pronominal expression in oral discourse, several scholars explain that there are significant differences in the use of specific and non-specific pronominals (Lapidus and Otheguy, 2005; Otheguy et al., 2007; Cameron, 1992, 1993, 1995, 1997). For instance, Lapidus and Otheguy (2005) suggest that there are varying degrees of referential specificity with the plural pronoun ellos ‘they’. They account for the non-referential, semireferential, and corporate ellos. Cameron (1992:233) and Otheguy et al. (2007), however, attested to distinct patterns of pronominal expression in Spanish regional dialects. Thus, on the one hand, we find varying degrees of specificity with respect to pronominals and, on the other, distinct patterns among regional dialects. * Tel.: +1 732 932 7496x8244; fax: +1 732 932 7496. E-mail address: [email protected]. 0378-2166/$ – see front matter # 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.pragma.2008.09.024

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Aspects of the pronoun UNO as grammatical subject also suggest that it has varying degrees of specificity and several discursive functions, but research to date has not fully investigated this form and the linguistic contexts in which it occurs among speakers of distinct Spanish varieties in the U.S. For instance, when produced as a subject, this pronoun can have four possible referents. By way of illustration, consider the following examples obtained from several speakers in this study:

(3) (4)

(5)

!

(2)

Uno no puede hacer las cosas como tu´ mandas. (NYCPRJa26) ‘ONE cannot do things like you demand.’ Yo tambie´n tomo las medicinas dos veces al dı´a. Uno como que se va a morir si no se las toma, Verdad? (PNJ002-07Mex) ‘I also take the medicines two times a day. It’s like one is going to die if (one) does not take them, right?’ No toques ese libro! Uno no debe tocar lo que no le pertenece. (NBMex16) ‘Don’t touch that book! One should not touch what doesn’t belong to you.’ Hay oportunidades en los EEUU. Y alla´ uno no cuenta con tantos recursos econo´micos como aquı´. (NJURU1-RM) ‘There are opportunities in the U.S. And over there one doesn’t have that many economic resources like here.’ Uno no puede cargar con tantos problemas. (PNJ002-07COL) ‘One cannot handle so many problems.’ ?

(1)

Thus, the use of UNO in these contexts implicates a set that can include the speaker, the immediate hearer, or anyone else depending on the context. Nonetheless, the information predicated of UNO is interpretable as bearing on the self-interest of the speaker and the hearer. This study draws attention to the alternation exclusively between YO and UNO.1 It examines UNO in a non-varying interpretation of the context. That is, it examines UNO in [+specific]2 contexts only. The article primarily focuses on examining several linguistic variables that condition the occurrence of UNO among bilingual speakers of several Spanish varieties3 in oral narratives of personal experience and in psychotherapeutic motivational interviews. These discourses are of particular interest because it is through life narratives and therapeutic discourse that ‘self’ intersects with markers of person such as UNO and YO. Worthham (2001:1) maintains that narratives serve to represent characters and events but also to establish relationships with the hearer. Among the few studies that have investigated Spanish pronominal expression, none has examined the functions of UNO and the variables that may condition its use among speakers of distinct Spanish varieties (Cameron, 1992; De Fina, 2003; Holænder Jensen, 2002; Ramı´rez, 2007). This article is organized as follows: After presenting what has been documented regarding UNO in traditional grammar and comparing the linguistic aspects of, in particular, UNO and YO, in section 3, I discuss the research questions, the participants, the methodology and the envelope of variation in section 4. This section is followed by section 5, the results. Section 6 summarizes the findings and section 7 provides a discussion. 2. Theoretical background on the alternation between UNO and YO Despite the generalizations about UNO, in oral discourse it is not ubiquitous in grammatical subject position. For instance, Flores-Ferra´n (2007) reported that the occurrence of non-specific form tu´ and UNO was limited to only 5.1% of 5076 verbs. The data in that study were obtained from oral narratives of monolingual speakers of the Mexican Spanish variety in New Jersey (NJ). To date, however, there is limited empirical research in oral discourse regarding

1

The alternation between UNO and [+/ ] specific tu´ would require a separate study for several reasons: First, the syntactic and discursive constraints that condition the use of [+/ ] specific tu´ are different (see Cameron, 1992). Secondly, [ ] specific tu´ can be produced as a discourse marker (i.e., tu´ sabes, tu´ entiendes) whereas UNO cannot. 2 [+specific] feature of second person tu´ ‘you’ in Cameron (1992, 1996) has the hearer as its referent as opposed to a generic tu´ [-specific] where no particular referent is denoted. In this particular study, UNO is examined in [+specific] contexts only when its referent is the speaker [+speaker focused]. 3 It should be noted that the participants have lived in the U.S. are bilingual, and may differ in the use of UNO when compared to their monolingual counterparts, an aspect this study does not address.

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UNO. Rather, most of the literature devoted to this form is found in traditional grammar. For example, Elvira (1994:174) notes that: ‘‘En la inmensa mayorı´a de los casos, los sintagmas que contienen uno, en posicio´n adjetiva o sustantiva, refieren a un individuo o entidad especı´fica y existente en la realidad o en el universo del discurso.’’ [My translation: In the immense majority of cases, the phrases that contain UNO, in adjectival or nominal position, refer to an individual or specific entity that is existent in reality or in the universe of discourse.] While Elvira (1994) maintains that UNO can have a specific referent, an individual, the statement also posits that its referent can exist in the universe of the discourse. However, he also reports that, in Medieval Spanish, UNO appeared in instances where there was an absence of a specific entity. These observations suggest that this form has had dual values with regard to specificity. Lapesa (1975), on the other hand, in documenting its uses en Mı´o Cid, noted that UNO as a nominal subject lacked an individual reference. However, Alarcos Llorach (1994:119) explains that its role is that of a nominal expression: ‘‘Como todos los adjetivos, los cuantificadores pueden cumplir aisladamente las funciones propias del sustantivo. Los cuatro indefinidos singularizadores . . . (uno, alguno, ninguno, cualquiera), sin necesidad de artı´culo, pueden como los demostrativos desempen˜ar el papel de sustantivo: Uno hace lo que puede. . .’’ [My translation: ‘‘Like all adjectives, quantifiers can singularly accomplish the proper functions of a nominal (subject). The four indefinite singularized. . .(One, some, no one, and anyone), without the need of an article, can, as do demonstratives, operate as nominals: ‘ONE does what (ONE) can’.’’] Haverkate (1985:13) maintains that UNO serves as a defocalizer and suggests that, when UNO is used, the speaker is extending their individual perspective to that of those who participate in that same state. Haverkate posits that UNO generalizes the propositional content of the speaker’s perspective. ‘‘Se trata [el uso de UNO], pues, de una estrategia que consiste en elevar un punto de vista personal al plano de una visio´n compartida por todo el mundo’’. (p. 13) [My translation: It is about [the use of UNO], then, a strategy that consists of elevating a personal point of view to a level where a vision is shared by everyone.] On the other hand, sociolinguistic research that has investigated pronominals to date suggests that UNO moves into the realm of personalization since it is used to refer to a [+human] subject. Several scholars have noted that UNO has human agency (Cameron, 1992; Lapidus and Otheguy, 2005) as illustrated in (6), an example extracted from a narrative produced by a speaker of the Cuban Spanish variety: (NJCU2-RMJI) (6) Uno nunca se siente bien. ‘One never feels good.’ Nevertheless, there are several linguistic distinctions between UNO and YO that make it challenging to consider them as equivalent forms. For instance, UNO differs from YO with respect to its use with verbs in the preterit tense. While the first person YO can be accompanied by verbs in the preterit, UNO cannot. Examples (7) and (8) illustrate this distinction. Example (7) is extracted from a narrative produced by a speaker of the Cuban Spanish variety: (NJCU2-RMJI) (7) YO tuve mi carro. ‘I had my car.’ (8) ?UNO tuvo su carro. ‘One had her car.’ Although example (8) is grammatical, another interpretation of UNO is rendered—that of the quantifier or numeric ‘ONE’. UNO and YO also differ with regard to the degree of specificity. Pragmatically and semantically, while UNO may have the speaker and the hearer as referent or the speaker or the hearer, YO has an individualized focus. De Fina

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(2003:79), in analyzing narratives of personal experience, suggests that alternations between YO and UNO represent shifts in focus from an individual to a group (a collective). She maintains that the shift also moves in the direction towards the generalizability of an experience. This concept of generalizability is explained as an experience that is also relevant to others, shared by others, or involves the hearers in the story world (p. 81). The concept of generalizability is depicted in example (4). Go´mez Torrego (1992:215) notes that UNO can operate as a covert tu´ or yo and points out that one of the unique syntactic characteristics of UNO is that it has a feminine form but not a plural form. Go´mez Torrego provides these examples with exception to (11), which is provided for contrast purposes: (9) (10) (11)

Si una se queda en casa, no se realiza como mujer. ‘If one (fem.) stays home, (one) does not get accomplished as a woman.’ *Unos siempre saben lo que hacen. ‘Ones always know what (they) do.’ Uno siempre sabe lo que hace. ‘One always knows what (one) does.’

Another distinction among these forms is that of their use in a reflexive context. Go´mez Torrego (1992:16) provides example (12) where UNO and YO can syntactically alternate yet may semantically and pragmatically differ. I provide example (13) to illustrate the distinction: (12) (13)

Uno se lava todos los dı´as. ‘One washes (oneself) every day.’ Yo me lavo todos los dı´as. ‘I wash (myself) every day.’

However, UNO and YO can alternate in utterances constructed with the reflexive form mismo as in example (14) which was extracted from the corpus. Example (15) is provided to illustrate the distinction: (14) (15)

UNO mismo se turba. (PNJ002Mex) ‘One (self) gets confused.’ YO mismo me turbo. ‘I myself get confused.’

Syntactically, UNO can be produced post verbally as with the case of YO. Examples (16) and (17) illustrate this discursive feature: (16) (17)

Se cansa UNO de tanto dolor. (PNJ002Mex) ‘One (ref.) gets tired from so much pain.’ Tenı´a que echar YO pastillas otra vez. (002PRMI07) ‘I had to throw away the pills again.’

3. English ‘One’ For the English counterpart of UNO, ‘one’, Wales (1980:95) has proposed a three-way taxonomy. ‘One 1’ is a pronominal that is impersonal or has generic use; ‘ONE 2’ is the generic/egocentric form that includes the speaker; and ‘ONE 3’ is the advanced egocentric form that refers to upper class speakers. She has also noted that as ‘we’ and ‘you’ have acquired generalized functions, ‘ONE’ has become more specific, more ‘personal’ and more egocentric. Wales (1980:94) maintains that it denotes human agency and suggests that it is commonly used in clauses that are nonfactual—in conditional clauses or formulaic utterances involving verbs such as ‘think’, ‘imagine’, ‘tell’, etc. and in generic propositions to indicate universal truths. Example (18) was provided by Wales (1980:97): (18)

One should always be careful in talking about one’s finances.

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Wales suggests that the homophoric ‘you’ and ‘we’ are popular in a context such as example (18), where advice is provided to the hearer, but connotations of familiarity, solidarity, closeness, and speaker–listener relationships determine which form the speaker uses. These connotations are also evident in Spanish in (18) Uno siempre debe tener cuidado cuando habla de sus finanzas. If we consider example (18) as a perlocutionary speech act, we find that the utterance produces an effect on the hearer (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). In this case, the speaker is advising or warning the hearer to form some attitude or to act in a certain way about her finances. Thus, the use of UNO in (18) shows how speaker intentionality may play a role in determining the use of UNO as opposed to YO in this particular context. Haliday and Hasan (1976) distinguished pronominal reference by endophoric and exophoric functions, functions that differ with YO and UNO. Typically, endophoric refers to persons in the text such as first person, while exophoric refers to persons in the discourse such as the addressee, second or third persons or a collective. They note that the English form ‘one’ falls between the boundaries of these two functions (1976:51), a characteristic also shared by Spanish UNO. 4. The study With the above considerations in mind, the present study aims to contribute to the scholarship that exists regarding the variable use of subjects in Spanish, but in particular focuses on the variable use of UNO and YO. To date, the literature is divided regarding UNO: On the one hand, while some scholars contend that UNO and YO may represent equivalent alternations, on the other, semantic and grammatical distinctions point to the fact these two forms do not always represent two ways of saying the same thing (Labov, 1966, 1972). 4.1. Research questions This study is guided by the following questions: 1. In competing syntactic environments, why do speakers produce UNO instead of YO? 2. Are differences exhibited in the use of UNO in oral narratives of personal experience as opposed to the discourse of therapeutic motivational interviews? 3. Is the expression of UNO conditioned by speaker intentionality? If so, how can we account for this? 4.2. The participants I collected speech samples from 12 speakers of several Spanish varieties: two Puerto Ricans, two Dominicans, two Cubans, two Uruguayans, two Mexicans, and two Colombians. There were three groups in the study. Narratives were extracted from the New York City (NYC) bilinguals’ corpus that I gathered from 1998 to 2000. The second group consisted of New Jersey (NJ) bilinguals4 whose narratives were obtained in 2006. The third group was composed of participants who attended psychotherapy and were participating in motivational interview sessions conducted in 2007. This discourse was produced between a therapist and client. The participants’ ages ranged from 19 to 50 and over, and their careers spanned a broad spectrum, including technical, clerical, sales, teaching, physical trainers, and homemakers. All are first- and second-generation residents of Central New Jersey and New York City who have lived in their respective state between nine and 45 years.5 4.3. Methodology For the oral narratives of personal experience, I asked the speakers to narrate an event that had left a great impact in their lives. I recorded and transcribed the narratives. Typically, in this type of narrative, the speaker self-constructs the story within the context of an autobiographical account. With regard to the corpus of the motivational interviews, a 4

Bilingualism was self-reported for all participants in the study. All interviews were conducted in Spanish. It merits pointing out that Central New Jersey is located only one hour from New York City and Philadelphia. Thus, the participants of this particular study are in close proximity to these cities and, within these two geographical areas, they not only have contact with English, but also have contact with speakers of the South and Central American, Iberian, and Caribbean Spanish varieties. 5

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therapist interviewed his clients and digitally recorded the sessions. To guarantee privacy, I was not present during the interviews so that the clients could feel comfortable in speaking with the therapist. In the motivational interviews, a therapist uses open questions and reflexive listening to elicit change talk (Amrhein et al., 2001). These interviews that consist of a client’s ‘self’ talk were purposefully selected to draw comparisons regarding UNO among distinct discourse genres. The recordings of the narratives and the motivational interviews were transcribed and coded as described in section 4.4. This study departs from the few previous studies that have reported quantitatively on the occurrence of UNO in oral discourse in two ways: First, it differs in that it defines the envelope of variation with regard to UNO in relation to YO. Second, it takes into account the occurrence of UNO and its clausal context in two distinct types of discourse. 4.4. The envelope of variation Verbs that were expressed with UNO and YO in grammatical subject position were analyzed for the purpose of determining if the verb and its context were a site where the variation between UNO and YO could occur—that is, if the context was part of the envelope of variation (Labov, 1972; Fasold, 1990). As noted by Silva-Corvala´n (1984:229), ‘‘Each verbal form has a general referential meaning which determines its possible co-occurrence with other forms and its use within a given communicative situation’’. Verbs with null subjects were not entered in this analysis for several reasons. First, identical verb morphology exists with [+/ ] specific USTED, EL/ELLA and UNO. Second, USTED and EL/ELLA do not have the same scope of functions and possible referents as UNO. Third, although Cameron (1997:57) argues that the USTED variant is extremely infrequent, it is frequent in therapist–client talk, and this may falsely increase the number of tokens coded. Finally, in several Spanish varieties (i.e., Colombian Spanish) the use of USTED is not necessarily considered deferential (Hurtado, 2005). Namely, it can operate as [+/ specific] tu´ and UNO, another concern that could confound the coding process. Consequently, only verbs expressed with UNO and YO were analyzed provided that they met the following condition: A verb, whose subject was expressed with UNO or YO was entered in the analysis if and only if the alternation between these two forms would not change the semantic and pragmatic content of the proposition. In other words, the analysis was restricted to contexts where the referent of UNO could only be interpreted as YO. This design, although it limited the number of tokens to 1829 verbs, provided for a more accurate depiction of the use of UNO. Examples (19a and b) and (20) provided by Haverkate (1985) illustrate verbs that could be entered or omitted from the analysis respectively. In (19a and b), the alternation is possible and therefore, the underlined verbs tengo and tiene could be entered in the analysis. In (20) the alternation between UNO and YO is not possible; thus, the verb trabaja could not be entered in the analyses: ?

(19a) Si YO tengo diez manzanas, y compro dos, cua´ntas manzanas tengo? ‘If I have ten apples and I buy two, how many apples do I have?’’ (19b) Si UNO tiene diez manzanas y compra dos, cua´ntas manzanas tiene? ‘If I one has ten apples and buys two, how many apples does (one) have?’’ (20) *Uno trabaja siempre por mi propio bien. ‘One always works for my own good.’ ?

The study relied on the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), a well-known statistical model used by Otheguy et al. (2007:772) that examined the use of pronominal expression among several Spanish varieties. The scholars note that SPSS provides univariate analyses (i.e., means, percentages), bivariate analyses (i.e., correlations), and multivariate analysis (i.e., multiple regression, logistic regression) comparable to that of VARBRUL.6 The variables that were analyzed in the study are listed below. The social variables selected for this study were informed by Haverkate’s (1985) argument that dialect, gender, and social relations may mediate the use of UNO. The linguistic variables were mainly derived from studies that analyzed the expression of pronominals, such as Cameron (1992), De Fina (2003), Otheguy et al. (2007). 6

The program commonly used for variationist research in sociolinguistics. Bayley (2002) notes that in a comparison of both VARBRUL and SPSS, both perform similar operations. For further discussion on sociolinguistic and quantitative methods, see Morrison (2007, 2005).

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The dependent variable: UNO, YO. The independent linguistic variables: 1. Clause type: Main, Subordinate 2. Semantic clause type: Negative, Positive, Neutral (information giving) 3. Semantic verb type: mental, desire, estimative, agreement, state, external activity, reporting, ability, reflexive, feeling-related, imbalance, commitment. 4. Verb tense 5. Discourse type: oral narrative, first or second motivational interview The independent social variables: 6. Speaker origin (residing in NYC and NJ): Mexican, Colombian, Dominican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Uruguayan 7. Speaker age: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s+ 8. Speaker gender 5. The results The ensuing section presents a quantitative analysis of the patterns of UNO and YO in the full cohort of participants. In Table 1, we find that only 10.9% of the verbs were expressed with UNO in grammatical subject position. Table 1 The distribution of frequencies in the use of UNO and YO in the corpus (N = 1829). Grammatical subject

# in corpus

UNO YO

199 1630

Total

1829

Percent 10.9 89.1 100

The next table shows the distribution of UNO and YO among the clause types: main or subordinate. The examples that follow were produced in an oral narrative by a speaker of the Puerto Rican Spanish variety. UNO appears in: (21) a main clause, (22) a main and a subordinate clause, and (23) in subordinate clause. (Participant: NYCJaq5) (21) Ası´ uno piensa de la gente mayor. ‘That’s how one thinks of older people.’ (22) Uno piensa si uno debe respetarlo o no respetarlo. ‘One thinks if one should respect it or not respect it.’ (23) Pero mientras ma´s se practica [espan˜ol] mejor porque uno puede ser exitoso. ‘But the more that Spanish is practiced, the better, because one can be successful.’ Table 2 The distribution of frequencies regarding the appearance of UNO and YO in main or subordinate clauses (N = 1829). Grammatical subject

UNO YO

% by clause type

Total (%)

Main

Subordinate

58.8 71.8

41.2 28.2

100 100

p = <.000.

As seen in Table 2, speakers produced UNO in main more often than in subordinate clauses. A similar pattern appears with YO. These data suggest that UNO and YO may compete with each other for similar grammatical subject functions.

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However, in reviewing the data more closely, one finds that there is a larger percentage point difference with the expression of YO in main (71.8%) and subordinate (28.2%) clauses, 43 percentage points, while only a 17.6 percentage point difference between clause types with respect to UNO (58.8–41.2%). In other words, the distribution of UNO is more generalized. The following table shows the findings regarding the semantic clause type category and its relation to the expression UNO and YO. The occurrence of UNO and YO was coded according to the context of the clause in which it appeared. The ‘Negative/Negation’ category included utterances where speakers produced negation such as Uno no puede hacer eso. ‘One cannot do that.’, or used negative quantifiers ninguno, nadie, such as in Ningu´n medicamento me viene bien; uno no puede controlarse (PNJ002Mex). ‘No treatment agrees with me; one cannot control oneself.’ This category also included statements that were produced in conflict narratives following Flores-Ferra´n (2002), Grimshaw (1990), and Simmel (1955). For instance, this next narrative excerpt was coded as ‘negative’: . . .El lugar no tiene ducha y no tienen ban˜era. . .es muy inco´modo. . ., uno tiene que sacar. . .(Yol1NYC) ‘The place doesn’t have a shower and doesn’t have a bathtub. . .it is very uncomfortable. . .one has to take. . .’. On the other hand, positive clauses were also defined broadly. For example, in discussing the positive effect of medication a client stated, ‘‘Uno si se las toma, mejora.’’ (PNJ002Mex). ‘If one takes them, (one) improves.’ Utterances obtained in narratives that did not include negation and conflict, were coded as positive clauses such as: Uno puede contar con e´l. (Yol1NYC) ‘One can count on him’. The column marked as ‘neutral’ represents utterances intended to communicate general information and were not considered positive or negative in nature. For example, Yo te voy a contar una historia muy rara. (Yol1NYC). ‘I am going to narrate a weird story’, and Uno tiene cambiar. (PNJ002Mex) ‘One has to change’. The examples below were produced by a speaker of the Colombian Spanish variety in an oral narrative. UNO is expressed in what was coded as a neutral information-giving clause in (24), as a positive-related clause in (25), and as a negative-related clause in (26): (NJColCar1) (24) Yo voy a hablar un poquito de del ‘‘spanglish’’ eso. . . que uno tiene, de vez en cuando se le sale. ‘I’m going to speak a little of about ‘spanglish’ that. . . which one has, once in a while it comes out.’ (25) Cuando uno es madre, se da cuenta lo importante que es. ‘When one is a mother, (one) notices how important it is.’ (26) Pero. . . pero uno no ve las diferencias entre ellas. ‘But. . . but one does not see the differences between them (fem.).’

Table 3 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO according to clause type (N = 1829). Grammatical subject

UNO YO

% by semantic clause type

Total (%)

Negative

Positive

Neutral

41.2 50.9

6.5 10.6

52.3 38.6

100 100

p = <.001.

Table 3 reveals that UNO is expressed in negative/negation contexts in a higher frequency (41.2%) than in positive contexts (6.5%), but this tendency is also characteristic of YO. Secondly, we find that both these forms were expressed in high frequencies in neutral information-giving clauses. In sum, however, the data suggest that the 12 participants of this study had a tendency to use UNO in contexts that were categorized as negative/negation and information-giving (neutral) clauses. The next table delves further into examining the intersection between clause and discourse type with respect to UNO and YO. The purpose of this table is to address the question regarding the type of contexts in which UNO is produced.

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Table 4 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO according to semantic clause type and discourse type (N = 1829). Discourse type

% in semantic clause type

Total (%)

Subject

Negative

Positive

Neutral

Narrative

UNO YO

38.7 42.8

7.2 12.4

54.1 44.9

100 100

First interview

UNO YO

47.5 56.5

2.5 9.6

50.0 33.8

100 100

Second interview

UNO YO

41.7 57.5

8.3 8.7

50.0 33.8

100 100

Table 4 draws attention to the frequencies with which UNO and YO were expressed in their respective discourses. It shows once again that UNO was expressed in higher frequencies in negative/negation contexts than in positive ones. But surprisingly, UNO was expressed in higher frequencies in negative-related contexts in motivational interviews (47.5% and 41.7%) than in narratives (38.7%). Secondly, there is a decrease in the use of UNO from the first motivational interview to the second yet there is no change in frequency of neutral-information giving clauses from one motivational interview to another (50%). Nonetheless, the Pearson Chi-square value for narratives was that of p = .117, but for the first and second motivational interviews the values were p = .069 and .074 respectively. These values suggest that the relationship between and the occurrence of UNO and YO in the motivational interviews are statistically more significant than in that of the narratives. In sum, there are three intersecting pieces of data that can characterize the use of UNO. First, the occurrence of UNO is almost evenly distributed among main and subordinate clauses. Second, there is a tendency for this form to appear in the negative–negation clause in motivational interviews. Finally, its occurrence appears to be mediated by the type of discourse, in this case the motivational interviews. We turn now to a brief discussion regarding the appearance of UNO with the semantic verb type. I examined UNO in relation to performativity in verbs with the purpose of investigating its relationship with speaker intentionality. Prior to discussing the data, a brief explanation regarding the categorization of verbs is presented. Verbs were categorized mainly on an analysis of commitment language in therapeutic discourse (Amrhein, 1992), and Speech Act Theory (Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969). Austin suggested that the best way to systematically analyze explicit performative utterances is through performative verbs. However, instead of categorizing verbs only as ‘performative’, ‘quasiperformative’, or ‘non-performative’, several verb categories were coded with more detailed semantic distinctions. The reasoning behind this categorization is, as noted by Amrhein (1992:756), ‘‘Where there have been a number of studies investigating how indirect speech acts convey speaker intentions. . .little has been reported concerning how verbs used in direct, performative acts convey them’’. However, by coding verbs using over 13 categories such as ‘‘desire’’, ‘‘commitment’’, ‘‘mental’’, ‘‘feeling’’, the data did not produce an adequate distribution of UNO that revealed any strong tendency. Therefore, this variable’s factors were re-coded as they appear in Table 5.

Table 5 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO according to semantic type of verb (N = 1829). Semantic verb type

Performative: Reporting, Commitment Non-performative: Ability Non-performative: Feeling Non-performative: Mental Non-performative: State Non-performative: External activity Other non-performative verbs (estimative, commitment, desire, reflexive) p = <.000.

% by subject type

Total (%)

UNO

YO

10.9 23.1 14.9 14.2 12.5 13.4 15.6

89.1 76.9 85.1 85.8 87.5 86.6 84.4

100 100 100 100 100 100 100

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The data did not render sufficient evidence to elucidate the specific type of verbs that tend to accompany UNO other than non-performatives. Only 10.9% of the occurrences of UNO were related to performative verbs (Reporting and Commitment verbs). Thus a brief explanation is provided. Table 5 shows that whereas the occurrence of YO is more evenly distributed among all semantic verb types, UNO is not. Its occurrence is conditioned mainly by nonperformatives. An explanation cannot be afforded regarding the high frequency of UNO with verbs of ability and the low frequency of YO with these types of verbs. Table 6 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO with regard to verb tense (N = 1829). Verb tense

UNO

YO

Total

Present Preterit Imperfect Future forms Subjunctive forms Comp: Haber + verb Para X hacerlo Gerund X mirando

14.6 0 7.2 10.5 11.3 3.9 85.7 11.4

85.4 100 92.8 89.5 88.7 96.1 14.3 88.6

100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100

p = <.000.

While the frequency of YO appears to be evenly distributed among most verb tenses with the exception to the construction of preposition + subject + infinitive Para yo hacerlo, the frequency of UNO is distinct in each verb category. However, UNO was used in higher frequencies than expected in preposition + subject + infinitive construction. We can also note that there is a mild tendency for UNO to occur with present tense verbs (Table 6). In the ensuing section, the effects of the social variables (speaker origin, age, and gender) are examined. Table 7 shows the distribution of these forms by speaker origin. Table 7 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO according to speaker origin (N = 1829). Subject type

% by speaker origin Mex

UNO YO Total (%)

8.2 91.8 100

Col 15.5 84.5 100

Dom 52.8 47.2 100

PR 6.7 93.3 100

Cu 14.0 86.0 100

Uru 28.8 71.2 100

p = <.000.

One of the goals of the study is to determine whether distinct patterns exist among the 12 participants represented in the study. Table 7 shows that the two Dominican Spanish speakers produced UNO in 52.8% of their verbs while the two speakers of the Puerto Rican variety, only 6.7%, and the two Cubans, 14.0%. Each pair of speakers is characterized by different frequencies. A closer examination of the speakers by origin shows that the Caribbean speakers (the six Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans) and the non-Caribbean (the six Mexicans, Colombians, Uruguayans) speakers did not show similar patterns with respect to their use of UNO. The absence of similar patterns among these groups may suggest that UNO may not be conditioned by the Spanish variety of these twelve speakers, although caution is reminded since there are only two speakers for each Spanish variety. It should be noted however, that the pattern that appears for YO is relatively similar throughout the pairs with the exception of the two Dominican speakers. The two Dominicans produced the highest frequency of UNO (52.8%). This variety has been reported as one in flux with regard to obligatory expression of subjects (Toribio, 2000). In other words, this Spanish variety is moving toward an obligatory expression of subjects. In addition to this observation, Cameron (1997:57) has also noted that several Spanish dialects have reanalyzed non-specific tu´ as analogous to that of non-specific usted and uno (Table 8).

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Table 8 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO according to speaker’s age (N = 1829). Age

20s 30s 40s 50s+

% by subject type

Total (%)

UNO

YO

3.8 6.1 12.9 13.1

96.2 93.9 87.1 86.9

100 100 100 100

p = <.000.

We now turn to the data regarding the use of UNO in the different age groups. This variable examined whether the speaker’s age could be correlated to the use of UNO. The most salient and significant finding with regard to the social variables is that of the speaker’s age and its correlation to the use of UNO. We find a general increase from younger to older speakers. For instance, speakers in their 20s produced UNO in fewer verbs (3.8%) than those in their 30s, 40s, and 50s. This stratification runs opposite to the patterns found in the column for YO, where we find that as age increased the use of YO mildly decreased. Fig. 1 illustrates the distribution of YO and UNO among the age groups and their tendencies with regard to these forms.

Fig. 1. The distribution of UNO and YO according to age.

As seen in Fig. 1, there is an evident increase in the frequencies of UNO as age increases. In contrast, a decrease in the use of YO among older adults is apparent. We cannot ascertain from these data whether older individuals favored UNO because their utterances were, for instance, assertives or directives (Searle, 1969, 1977). However, one of the principle overarching findings in studies that have documented the use of pronominals suggests that older adults tend ´ vila-Jime´nez, 1996; Flores-Ferra´n, 2005; Flores and Toro, 2000; to decrease the use of overt subject pronouns (i.e., A Morales, 1986). As such, the fact that UNO appeared more frequently in the discourse of older adults is striking and calls for a closer examination of the type of proposition that is being produced by adults (Table 9).

Table 9 The distribution of frequencies of UNO and YO with regard to speaker gender (N = 1829). Subject type

UNO YO Total (%) p = <.002.

% by speaker gender Females

Males

9.8 90.2

15.6 84.4

100

100

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Although a Chi-square test shows that the social variable of gender is not as statistically significant as other previously mentioned variables, one generalization can be made. In the corpus of this study, males produced UNO with greater frequency than females. 6. Conclusion In this article, I described how a group of bilinguals of several Spanish varieties who are residents of New York City and Central New Jersey alternate the forms UNO and YO in oral narratives of personal experience in psychotherapeutic motivational interviews. One of the goals of this study was to determine the linguistic and social variables that condition this alternation. In characterizing its use, the study noted that this form of ‘self’, UNO, is complex because it appears to be conditioned by semantic-pragmatic, syntactic, discursive, and social variables. Based strictly on the facts presented here, there is evidence that points to a generalized distribution of UNO among main and subordinate clauses. This pattern was not evident with regard to the use of YO. Speakers tended to use YO in main clauses more than in subordinate clauses. When examining the semantic clause type, the data point to the fact that the occurrence of UNO appeared almost evenly divided between clauses that contained negation or were negative containing conflict and clauses that were neutral information-giving in nature. There was a correlation found with respect to the semantic verb type and the occurrence of UNO. While YO appeared evenly spread throughout all semantic verb types, UNO appeared mainly accompanied by non-performative verbs. Regarding verb tenses, a similar pattern was found. While YO appeared to be spread throughout the verb tenses coded in the study, speakers used UNO with present tense verbs and in the preposition + subject + infinitive construction, i.e., Para uno hacerlo. Several other tendencies were found to be relevant in this study. There was decrease in the use of UNO from the first to second motivational interview. It was also noted that UNO was produced less often in oral narratives as opposed to motivational interviews. These findings suggest that the use of UNO serves a discursive device in psychotherapeutic interview settings that is not apparent in narrative discourse. With respect to the speaker’s distinct Spanish variety and the use of these two forms, this small-scale study did not find similar patterns in the use of UNO among the 12 speakers yet the frequencies found for YO were relatively similar with exception to the two Dominican speakers. On the other hand, the study revealed that the use of UNO was conditioned by the speaker’s age: the older the speaker, the stronger the tendency to use UNO. However, the pattern found with the expression of YO was the opposite. 7. Discussion Lyons (1999:165) has noted that an indefinite singular noun phrase may be used to denote a particular entity or to speak of any arbitrary member of the class described by the noun phrase. In this particular study, however, the focus was on instances where the use of UNO did not have an arbitrary referent but rather a specific one, YO. To that effect, I examined contexts where the use of UNO was specific and the referent could only vary with the first person pronominal. Several insights are afforded by the results of this analysis. The alternations between UNO and YO can be explained in two ways: One, by considering speaker intentionality and two, how speaker intentionality mediates the use of the grammatical features that accompany UNO. To respond to question three in which I asked why speakers produce UNO instead of YO, I note here that most models of linguistic communication emphasize the role of speaker intention and control over automatic processes that occur ‘‘without intention and conscious awareness’’ (Levelt, 1993:20). Consider Strawson’s (1950:342–343) example where he discusses what a speaker may do when deciding to encode a message into one syntactic structure or another: (ia) (ib)

That is the man who swam the channel twice on one day. That man swam the channel twice on one day.

Strawson (1950:342–343) proposed: I think the differences between the sentences in the (a) group and sentences in the (b) group can best be understood by considering the differences in the circumstances in which you would say (ia) and the

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circumstances in which you would say (ib). You would say (ia) instead of (ib) if you knew or believed that your hearer knew or believed that someone had swum the channel twice in one day. You say (ia) when you take your hearer to be in the position of one who can ask: Who swam the channel twice in one day? Thus, in accordance with one’s beliefs about what the listener knows or could know, the speaker intentionally selects one form (ia) and excludes others (ib). Similarly, the option to use UNO or YO is conditioned by what the speaker wants the hearer to act upon and how. Following this line of reasoning, De Fina (2003:53) also notes that ‘‘speakers exploit the multi-functionality of pronominal choices to express stances with respect to their interlocutors and topics and, to shift alignments and positions’’. Namely, and with regard to the distinction between UNO and YO, the occurrence of UNO may be mediated by a speaker’s intention to evoke familiarity and solidarity (by including the hearer as part of the speech act or proposition). Or said differently, it may be mediated by the speaker’s intention to distance or focalize their perspective away from the hearer in using the singularized form of ‘self’ YO. This explanation is supported by the data, where we found that the use of UNO diminished from the first motivational interview to the second, a tendency that may suggest changes in the communicative intentions or changes in the degree of familiarity between the speaker and hearer from one psychotherapeutic motivational interview to another. In addition, UNO was quantitatively more prevalent in motivational interviews than in narratives, a tendency that responds to the second question of this research. The data therefore suggest that UNO is used as a discursive device in psychotherapeutic interview settings, a tendency not apparent in narrative discourse. Namely, when speakers express UNO, they may want their hearer to acknowledge, act upon something, or become part of the proposition within the interview, while in recounting past events in narratives the speaker does not want the hearer to act upon the propositions. The social variable of age was found to condition the use of UNO. This finding also lends support to the idea that the use of UNO is discourse-pragmatically conditioned since an opposite pattern was uncovered among the older participants of this study with regard to YO. Perhaps when older speakers use UNO, their intention is to inform the hearer to make an inference about their inclusion in the act or proposition. In this case, the speech act involves what one person is doing to another (Austin, 1962). Levelt (1993:59) notes that speaker intentions are not merely to convey a message or thought, but that the communicative intention always involves this purpose of intention recognition by the hearer. Thus, UNO may be characterized in the following manner where S = speaker, H = hearer, V = verb: S intends, by a certain act Vx, that the H recognize the intention of S. In turn, this recognition may induce or cause the H to believe, be included, join or act upon Vx. The effectiveness of the intention, as noted by (Levelt, 1993:59), depends on several factors, among them: (1) what the speaker says, (2) the context, (3) the manner it is uttered, (4) other hearer factors such as the hearer’s willingness and background information. In using YO, the speaker does not convey an intention to induce or cause H to believe or act Vx. YO individualizes the speech event to exclude the hearer while the scope of UNO seems to be inclusive of the hearer—a sense of solidarity. This observation seems contrary to the claims made by Kitagawa and Lehrer (1990:740), who argue that with ‘one’ a specific person is not being picked. I posit that the hearer is being selected. For future research two concerns are suggested. First, further analyses are warranted with respect to the use of UNO and the type of speech acts produced by adults since the use of UNO in the data increased as the speakers’ ages increased. Second, the use of UNO should be investigated among monolinguals7 of the same variety to draw further comparisons. Acknowledgements I wish to thank Dr. Alex Interian of the University Medical and Dentistry School of New Jersey for funding this research through NIH. I am also grateful to Dr. Robert Bayley of University of California at Davis, and Dr. Gregory Guy of New York University for their insightful comments. Any errors are solely mine. 7

A variable that was not of interest to this particular study.

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Strawson, Peter, 1950. On referring. Mind 59, 320–344. Toribio, Almeida J., 2000. Setting parametric limits on dialectic variation in Spanish. Lingua 110, 315–341. Wales, Kathleen, 1980 Dec 2. Personal and indefinite reference: the users of the pronoun ‘one’ in present-day English. The Nottingham Linguistic Circular 9, 93–117. Worthham, Stanton, 2001. Narratives in Action. Columbia University Press, New York. Nydia Flores-Ferra´n is an assistant professor at Rutgers University, where she teaches in the Language Education Program in the Graduate School of Education, and in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in the School of Arts and Sciences. Her primary discipline is sociolinguistics, with research specializations in U.S. Spanish, Bilingualism, and Second Language Acquisition, including the teaching of English to speakers of other languages.