What Do YOU Mean?!

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

Two primary theoretical approaches have shaped research on second-person singular address forms, such as Spanish tú, French vous, and Italian Lei, and vocatives, such as sir, dude, and güey: Brown and Gilman’s (1960) distinction between power and solidarity and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) theory of politeness. While both frameworks have proven valuable, their binary approaches have limitations, particularly in accounting for research showing that address forms may also index regional identity (Weyers 2016), gender identity and sexual orientation (Fernández-Mallat & Basterretxea-Santiso 2025), and conformity to heteronormativity (Kiesling 2004). These limitations have contributed to the development of discursive approaches centered on identity and stance (Raymond 2016) and indexicality (Silverstein 2003; Fernández-Mallat & Newman 2026). This seminar introduces students to these theoretical frameworks and their application to the study of address forms, emphasizing the Spanish-speaking world while adopting a comparative perspective to identify cross-linguistic differences and commonalities.