Variation and adaptability: forms of address in SMS communication in Buenos Aires Spanish

Abstract

This article resumes the analysis of SMS in the Spanish dialectal variety of Buenos Aires, focalizing around the address forms, in light of the categories described within an economic style which “is marked by the accumulation of expressive resources” (Vela Delfa, 2005: 670) and tries to not be ambiguous (Cantamutto, 2014). The hypothesis explains the linguistic choices made by speakers for the discursive construction of SMS interactions, related to the use of resources and strategies specific to written communication mediated by mobile telephony, along with identity features denoting age and gender. As evidenced by previous analysis of the corpus SMS-CEBo (Cantamutto, 2012-2016), nominal forms and personal pronouns that are unnecessary for syntactic construction are expressed, but those elements are aimed at constructing the illocutionary force of the message and at personalizing and focusing on the addressee. Address forms, along with other expressive features, serve as affiliative traits among interacting and canalize politeness. In SMS communication, the absence of nominal forms of treatment causes adverse responses.