The major aim of this thesis is to characterize the use of diminutive forms in Mexican Spanish and to analyze it in the corpora. Secondarily, a series of activities is proposed so that the topic could be worked with in the classes of Spanish as a foreign language. The thesis consists of two main parts, a theoretical and an empirical one, and an appendix. In the theoretical introduction, the concept of the diminutive is described, as well as its morphological and semantic-pragmatic features, its peculiar use in American varieties of Spanish and, especially, its implementation in Mexican Spanish. Possible explanations of its idiosyncratic use are given; in particular, the Mexican society and the influence of Náhuatl are analyzed. The empirical part is divided into two sections. The main analysis focuses on the use of the diminutive in Mexican Spanish from the socio-linguistic and morfo-semantic point of view. The analysis is realized in the Corpus Sociolingüístico de la Ciudad de México. In the secondary analysis, the most frequent diminutives are investigated in the Corpus de Referencia del Espaňol Actual and the Corpus Diacrónico del Espaňol. The appendix presents various dynamic and communicatively-oriented activities, proposed both to practice the diminutive and to introduce the socio-cultural element, essential in the language teaching.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2007. / The entire dissertation/thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file (which also appears in the research.pdf); a non-technical general description, or public abstract, appears in the public.pdf file. Title from title screen of research.pdf file (viewed on October 25, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

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This study investigates the use of and the attitudes towards anglicisms in Mexican Spanish. Our aim is to find out whether and if so in what way the use and attitudes change according to the age and gender of the speaker. The study was carried out among 24 Mexicans living in the centre of Mexico who were divided into the age groups 18-29, 30-54, 55+ as well as gender. The informants answered a questionnaire of which the first part investigated their use of anglicisms, the second part investigated their attitudes towards the same. In the first part, the participants were asked to choose between a common anglicism or its also frequently used Spanish equivalent. In the second part, the informants were requested to indicate their level of agreement or disagreement towards three negative and three positive affirmations about anglicisms. Our results show that the use of anglicisms is bigger in the youngest group of informants and decreases with the age of the participants. Also concerning the attitudes, we found a correlation with age where the two younger groups of informants express neutral attitudes towards anglicisms while the attitudes of the oldest group of participants are negative. Our results don’t show any differences between the genders neither in use nor in attitudes.

In this thesis, we identify the fundamental terms required for the analysis of American variants of Spanish. We briefly present the geographical and social-historical context of Mexican Spanish, and address the heterogeneity of approaches used in related studies. We characterize the nature of the influence of indigenous languages on Mexican lexis, and give an overview of theoretical knowledge on the Spanish colloquial language. The key chapter is dedicated to the lexical particularities of Mexican Spanish, focusing on the colloquial language. We describe our specific findings in eleven sub-chapters structured according to two different criteria. We base our analysis of particular Mexican Spanish expressions mainly on the evaluation and mutual comparison of relevant lexicon entries provided by a set of selected lexicographical sources. Keywords: Mexican Spanish, lexis, variance, colloquial language, language contact

<p>  </p> <p>The present study describes the pragmatic functions and the social meaning of the discourse marker (DM) <em>órale</em>. <em>Órale </em>is a recognized and salient DM in Mexican Spanish (Mejía-Gómez, 2008; Mendoza-Denton, 2011; Navarro, 2005), but research on its pragmatic meanings and use in interaction and society is minimal. Considering previous literature on discourse markers and descriptions of <em>órale</em>, two research questions were addressed to examine the pragmatic and sociolinguistic uses of <em>órale</em>: (1) What are the pragmatic functions of <em>órale</em>? and (2) Do gender, age, and educational level affect the use of <em>órale</em>? By answering these research questions, the current investigation represents the largest and most systematic analysis of <em>órale</em> to date, and it offers both pragmatic and sociolinguistic understandings. </p> <p>The analysis considered all 189 <em>órale </em>tokens in the Corpus Sociolingüístico de la Ciudad de México (CSCM) (Butragueño & Lastra, 2011–2015)<a href="https://hammer.purdue.edu/account/home#_ftn1" target="_blank">[1]</a>. The pragmatic analysis relied on an iterative approach, using open coding and axial coding (Corbin & Strauss, 1990). In addition, it relied on the triangulation of prior descriptions of <em>órale</em>, turn position, and the speakers’ positioning in the social narrative. For the sociolinguistic analysis, descriptive statistics and statistical models were used to understand the effect of gender, age, and education on <em>órale</em> in general and its different functions.</p> <p>Results indicated three discourse functions of <em>órale</em> (i.e., exhortation, affirmation, reorientation), each with two subfunctions. Exhortation functions appeared in first pair part positions (i.e., initiating) and aided speakers in positioning as authoritative. Affirmation functions were in second pair part positions (i.e., responsive) and reflected a more agreeable positioning, and reoriention functions were turn­ medial. Quantitative analysis of the distribution of <em>órale</em> indicated that affirmation was the most frequent function, followed by reorientation and then exhortation. Regarding the sociolinguistic variables, a quasi-Poisson regression model and multinomial logistical models revealed that gender had a statistically significant effect on <em>órale</em> use, in that men used the DM more than women. In addition, in the analysis of the effect of the social categories on function of <em>órale</em>, education had a significant effect. The middle educational level relied more on <em>órale </em>for affirmation compared to other functions than the other groups. The interaction between social categories and functions was discussed with respect to the findings related to gender and level of education.</p> <p>A main contribution of this investigation was the typology of the pragmatic functions of <em>órale</em>. The analysis was sufficient to explain all data and more economical than some prior descriptions. Furthermore, the proposed typology relies on a triangulation of pragmatic function, turn position, and the positioning made by the speaker, which taken together provide validity to the analysis. Other contributions were the distribution of the functions of<em> órale </em>in discourse and among social categories. In addition, a theoretical contribution was made by the proposal of the core meaning, leading to more precise understanding of <em>órale</em>. </p> <p>  <br>    </p> <p><a href="https://hammer.purdue.edu/account/home#_ftnref1" target="_blank">[1]</a> The CSCM is a balanced corpus of 108 interviews with men and women across three social classes and three age groups. Interviews addressed thematic modules, including life threatening situations.</p>

Many studies have been done on language attitudes, including attitudes toward languages in contact, various dialects of a language, nonnative speech, and attitudes of second-language (L2) learners toward the language that they are learning. Typically the studies of second-language learning deal with the attitudes toward the language in general rather than toward specific varieties within the language. The present study measures the attitudes of L2 learners of Spanish who lived in Spain, Mexico and Argentina toward native speakers from Spain and Mexico. The nonnative speakers listened to recordings of four native speakers, a male and a female from Spain, and a male and a female from Mexico, and rated each on a series of characteristics such as intelligence, education, attractiveness, work ethic, and honesty. T-tests were run to determine whether or not the time spent in one of the countries affected the attitudes toward each variety of Spanish. The results show that the judges had a tendency to give higher ratings to the speakers that they could understand the easiest. In addition, there was an overall tendency to rate both of the speakers from Spain higher, as was found in studies by Álvarez, Martínez and Urdaneta (2001), as well as Montes-Alcalá (2011), and to rate the females higher, supporting what both González Martínez (2008) and Labov (1972) found.

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The main goal of this thesis is to describe what happens in the collaborative approach to therapy from a conversation and discursive analytical perspective. The data we worked with are part of collaborative therapy sessions in Mexican Spanish Dialect. Chapter 1 is an introduction to two of the main social constructionist approaches to therapy, the `reflecting team approach' and the `collaborative approach' to therapy. This sets out the theoretical environment in which the therapy was done. Chapter 2 is a review of the state of the art in conversation and discourse studies on therapy talk and related fields, illustrating the type of analysis done up to now. Chapter 3 describes aspects of Mexican population that were part of the context in which the data originated; some notes on translation issues are included here. Chapter 4 is the first analytic chapter and it describes the dynamics in conversation of the English particle `okay' as found in Spanish therapeutic interaction. It shows both the work okay is doing when found in the therapists' discourse and what it is doing when found in the clients' discourse. Chapter 5 presents the analysis of instances of informality that were found in the data, arguing that aspects of an `egalitarian therapeutic stance' can be displayed in the participants' talk. Chapter 6 is a study on questions and therapy, more specifically it shows the questions that can be asked by the clients in therapy talk and the conversational job this is doing. Chapter 7 is an example of research done when taking as a starting point a category that is relevant for therapy and counselling: active listening. In reading through this thesis, the reader will find aspects of the therapeutic approach as displayed in talk. Examples of this are the displays in talk of the philosophical stance, such as being egalitarian in an institutional setting. Besides describing how theoretical assumptions can be displayed in talk, this work describes in detail several aspects of therapy talk.