Fórmulas de tratamiento en Ocaña, Colombia
Abstract
The paradigm of forms of address has been a recurrent topic of study from a sociolinguistic perspective. Voseo, tuteo and ustedeo are the forms of address used in the Hispanic world. Voseo expreses confidence and familiarity, while tuteo same as voseo, denotes confidence and familiarity. Finally, ustedeo has a connotation of formality, respect and distance. This thesis aims to examine how forms of address are used in Ocaña, Colombia, and the relationship between their use and the social factors that affect the choice of pronoun. To achieve this aim, a sociolinguistic survey was applied to 88 participants. The sociolinguistic variables used in this research were gender, age, place of birth, level of education and socioeconomic status. The analysis revealed that the only variable that did not show statistical significance in any of the scenarios proposed in the survey was socioeconomic status. Additionally, results revealed that the use of usted has a semantic duality since it is used in contexts where one would expect to use a pronoun such as tú and vos, which traditionally denote familiarity. Finally, the results revealed evidence of a possible linguistic change in progress in the direction of increased use of tú by younger people and call into question the idea that vos is the most widely used second-person pronoun in Ocaña.