Cover not available
Article published In:
Spanish in Context
Vol. 18:2 (2021) ► pp.218–236

Vos and tú in the linguistic landscape

Attitudes toward their use in Medellín, Colombia

| College of Charleston

Although vos is common in speech in Medellín, it is considered non-prestigious for writing (Agudelo Montoya et al. 2016). Nonetheless, vos is an important marker of local identity (Jang 2013) that increasingly appears in writing (Weyers 2016a). Its presence suggests a potential upward shift in its prestige. For that to happen, favorable attitudes toward its use in writing are called for. Here we examine the linguistic attitudes of 222 medellinenses toward vos, tú, and their corresponding verb forms in advertising. We find that (1) all speakers prefer vos; (2) they favor the pronoun vos over its corresponding verb forms; (3) younger speakers prefer vos over their older counterparts; and (4) men prefer voseo verb forms while women prefer tuteo forms. Given the overall positive attitudes toward vos, it is possible that its prestige will increase.

Keywords: vos , attitudes, address
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Forms of address in Medellín
  • 3.Methodology
  • 4.Results and discussion
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 8 July 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/sic.18022.wey
References
Ades, Raphael
1953 “My First Encounter with the Spanish of Medellín.” Hispania 361: 325–327. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Agudelo Montoya, Claudia Liliana, Gladys Yolanda Pasuy Guerrero, Octavio Escobar Giraldo, and José Fernando Ramírez Osorio
2016 “Actitudes lingüísticas de los profesores de lenguas de la Universidad de Caldas respecto al voseo.” Revista de Investigaciones UCM 16 (27): 16–28. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bursik, Bronislav
2008 Las formas de tratamiento en la publicidad periodística de hoy de hace 25 años.” (Unpublished MA thesis). Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic. [URL]
Escribano, Asunción
2006 “La cortesía lingüística como recurso publicitario.” Zer 201: 271–297.Google Scholar
Ferrer, Eulalio
1995 El lenguaje de la publicidad. Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura Económica.Google Scholar
Flórez, Luis
1957 Habla y cultura popular en Antioquia: Materiales para un estudio. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo.Google Scholar
Gordon, Elizabeth
1997 “Sex, Speech, and Stereotypes: Why Women Use Prestige Speech Forms More Than Men.” Language in Society 26 (1): 47–63. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jang, Ji Son
2010 “Fórmulas de tratamiento pronominales en los jóvenes universitarios de Medellín (Colombia) desde la óptica socio-pragmática: Estrato socioeconómico y sexo.” Íkala 15 (26): 43–116.Google Scholar
2012 “La dinámica de la alternancia entre tú, vos y usted en Medellín (Colombia) desde la teoría de la acomodación comunicativa.” Forma y Función 25 (1): 129–144.Google Scholar
2013 “Voseo medellinense como expresión de identidad paisa.” Íkala 18 (1): 61–81.Google Scholar
2015 “Frecuencia del tú en tres zonas del departamento de Antioquia (Colombia): influencia de la zona urbana/rural.” Forma y Función 28 (1): 11–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Labov, William
2001 Principles of Linguistic Change. Social Factors. Malden: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Millán, Mónica
2014 “Vos sos paisa: A Study of Address Forms in Medellín, Colombia.” In New Directions in Hispanic Linguistics, ed. by Rafael Orozco, 92–111. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars.Google Scholar
Montes Giraldo, José Joaquín
1967 “Sobre el voseo en Colombia.” Thesaurus 221: 21–44.Google Scholar
Penny, Ralph
2000 A History of the Spanish Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Quintanilla Aguilar, José Roberto Alexander, and Pablo Rodríguez Prieto
2014 “El voseo en la publicidad de Costa Rica: Un análisis de las actitudes de los hablantes.” Revista Internacional de Lingüística Iberoamericana 12 (1): 109–119.Google Scholar
Saville-Troike, Muriel
1989 The Ethnography of Communication: An Introduction. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Urban Land Institute
2013 “City of the Year.” [URL]
Vestergaard, Torben, and Kim Shroder
1985 The Language of Advertising. New York: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Villa Mejía, Víctor
2010 “La solidaridad y poder del vos antioqueño.” Lingüística y Literatura 581: 69–85.Google Scholar
Weyers, Joseph R.
2011 “Tú and Usted in Mexican Advertising: The Politeness Systems of Written Public Discourse.” Southwest Journal of Linguistics 30 (1): 117–133.Google Scholar
2016a “Making the Case for Increased Prestige of the Vernacular: Medellín’s Voseo .” In Forms of Address in the Spanish-Speaking World, ed. by María Irene Moyna and Susana Rivera, 287–302. New York: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016b “Medellín Cuenta Con Vos: The Changing Role of Voseo in Written communication.” Comunicación (Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellín) 351: 67–81.Google Scholar
2018 “Beer, Hot Dogs, and Politics: The Vocative Function of Medellín’s Voseo.” Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 95 (5): 475–489. DOI logoGoogle Scholar