Article in:

Sociolinguistic patterns and processes of convergence and divergence in Spanish
Edited by Isabel Molina Martos, Florentino Paredes García and Ana M. Cestero Mancera
[Spanish in Context 17:2] 2020
► pp. 341–361

Narrative present in the Spanish of Santiago, Chile

Convergence and divergence with the Spanish variety from Mexico City

Silvana Guerrero González | Universidad de Chile

Javier González Riffo | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Silvana Arriagada Anabalón | Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

This investigation revises the use of the narrative present in the materials of the PRESEEA corpus. Based on 54 sociolinguistic interviews, the convergence and divergence of this phenomenon’s use is studied in the Spanish varieties from Santiago, Chile, and Mexico City. We attempt to study variation according to the individuals, economic factors and the presence of syntactic-discursive introductors before verbs, following the methodological guidelines of the Guía de estudios del presente narrativo en los corpus PRESEEA (Guerrero and Arriagada, 2017). In this way, we intend to answer two general questions: (a) why are there individuals who use the narrative present more than others and (b) what functions serve such resource within the narratives in sociolinguistic interviews.

Keywords: divergence, convergence, sociolinguistic patterns, narrative present, varieties of Spanish

References

Alarcos Llorach, Emilio

1994 Gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.

Avilés, Tania, and Gabriela Osorio

2010 Tiempo, aspecto y narración: uso y función del presente histórico en narraciones de experiencia personal. Informe de tesis para optar al grado de Licenciada en Lengua y Literatura Hispánica con mención en Lingüística, Facultad de Filosofía y Humanidades: Universidad de Chile.

Bello, Andrés

1841 Análisis ideológica de los tiempos de la conjugación castellana: reproducción facsimilar de la edición Príncipe, Valparaíso 1841 Caracas: Plan Cultural Caracas.

Calsamiglia, Helena and Amparo Tusón

1999 Las cosas del decir, Manual de análisis del discurso. Barcelona: Ariel.

De Fina, Anna, and Alexandra Georgakopoulou

2015a The Handbook of Narrative Analysis. Malden, Massachusetts: Wiley-Blackwell.

2015b Analyzing Narrative. Discourse and sociolinguistic perpectives. Cambridge: University Press.

Chafe, Wallace

(ed) 1982 “Integration and involvement in speaking, writing, and oral literature”. In Spoken and written language: Exploring orality and literacy, ed. by Deborah Tannen, 35–53. New Jersey: Ablex.

Gili Gaya, Samuel

1961 Curso superior de sintaxis española. Barcelona: Bibliograf.

Guerrero González, Silvana

2014 “Una aproximación sociolingüística al empleo del presente histórico en narraciones de experiencia personal en hablantes de Santiago de Chile”. RLA, Revista de Lingüística Teórica y Aplicada 52 (2): 89–112.

Guerrero, Silvana, and Silvana Arriagada

2017 Guía de estudios del presente narrativo en los corpus PRESEEA, disponible en: http://preseea,linguas,net/Metodolog%C3%ADa,aspx

Guerrero, Silvana, and Javier González

2017 “El empleo de de repente como introductor de la complicación en narraciones de experiencia personal de hablantes de Santiago de Chile”. Lexis LVI (1): 45–81.

Johnstone, Barbara

2006 “A new role for narrative in variationist sociolinguistics”. Narrative Inquiry 1: 46–55.

Juzwik, Mary

2012 “Spoken Narrative”. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Gee, and Michael Handford, 326–341. London: Routledge.

Labov, William

1972 “The transformation of experience in narrative syntax”. In Language in the inner city, Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

1983 [1972] Modelos Sociolingüísticos. Madrid: Cátedra.

2013 The Language of Life and Death, the Transformation of Experience in Oral Narrative. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Labov, William, and Joshua Waletzky

1967 “Narrative analysis”. In Essays on the verbal and visual arts, ed. by J. Helm 12–44. Seattle: University of Washington Press.

Lastra, Yolanda, and Pedro Martín Butragueño

2017 “El presente narrativo en historias de experiencia personal en el Corpus sociolingüístico de la Ciudad de México”. Presentation at the XVIII Congreso Internacional de ALFAL, 24–28 julio de 2017, Bogotá, Colombia.

Lenski, Gerhardt

1954 “Status crystalization: A non-vertical dimension of social status”. American sociological review 19: 405–413.

Real Academia Española

2009 Nueva gramática de la lengua española (NGLE), Madrid: Espasa Calpe.

Silva-Corvalán, Carmen

1983 “Tense and aspect in oral spanish narrative: context and meaning”. Language 59 (4): 760–780.

2001 Sociolingüística y pragmática del español. Washington: Georgetown University Press.

Soler, Sandra

2004 Discurso y género en historias de vida: una investigación de relatos de hombres y mujeres en Bogotá. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.

Tannen, Deborah

1996 La comunicación de hombres y mujeres a la hora del trabajo. Buenos Aires: Javier Vergara Editor S.A.

2017 You’re the only one I can tell. Inside the language of women’s friendships. New York: Ballantine Books.

Thornborrow, Joanna

2012 “Narrative Analysis”. In The Routledge Handbook of Discourse Analysis, ed. by James Gee, and Michael Handford, 51–65. London: Routledge.

Wolfson, Nessa

1978 “A feature of performed narrative: the conversational historical present”. Language in Society 7 (2): 215–237.

1979 “The conversational historical present alternation”. Language 55 (1): 168–182.