8.1 Introduction
In this last chapter I look at the pragmatic and discourse functions of address forms that servers and customers employed in the service encounters analyzed in Chapters 3–6. This chapter examines the referential and pragmatic functions of indexical forms, namely, two types of forms of address, vocatives and pronominal forms, in service encounters in the United States and Mexico. It focuses on the stylistic level of pragmatic variation (see Chapter 1, Section 1.4.6). It examines pragmatic variation in the choice and function of forms of address used to open, close, and negotiate a sales transaction, including the shift from formal V to familiar T to express involvement or camaraderie. As indexicals, these forms index or point to different degrees of formality, im/politeness, or respect. Their position in the interaction (initial, medial, or final) also determines the pragmatic function expressed. Forms of address are relational because they promote the negotiation of face (involvement or independence) between the interlocutors in order to create or reinforce the social relations between them. The interpersonal function of these forms varies according to the type of talk, namely, transactional talk (e.g. sales transaction) and relational talk (e.g. small talk, joking episodes), as well on the basis of the participants’ roles (i.e. service seeker and service provider). Im/politeness is subject to sociocultural variation (Culpeper Reference Coupland2011), and, in the context of service encounters, solidarity and deference politeness (Scollon and Scollon Reference Scollon and Scollon2001) are expressed according to the sociocultural expectations or cultural norms of the community of practice (see Introduction for my understanding of politeness, and Chapter 7 for an analysis of im/politeness, face, and facework strategies used in negotiating service).
This chapter is organized as follows. In the first section I offer an overview of research on forms of address with particular attention to English and Spanish (Section 8.2). Then, I present the results of the use of vocatives and pronominal forms from a cross-cultural perspective in US and Mexican supermarket delicatessens (8.3), followed by the use of forms of address at a Mexican market (8.4). In Section 8.5 I examine pragmatic variation in pronominal use as a discourse strategy, followed by the conclusions of this chapter (8.6). The data reported in this chapter are taken from the following chapters: delicatessens (Chapter 3), small shops (Chapter 4), and the open-air market in Mexico (Chapter 5). (See Table 1 in the Introduction for an overview of the corpus used in this book.)
8.2 Defining forms of address
Forms of address are devices that refer to the addressee and are studied under person and social deixis. Person deixis concerns the identification of the addressee or participant roles and is commonly realized through personal pronouns and vocatives (e.g. titles, kinship terms, and proper names). Social deixis is expressed through the codification of the social status between speaker and addressee(s) or speaker and some referent (Levinson Reference Levinson1983: 63). In English and Spanish, as in many other languages, social distinctions between the relative ranks of speaker and addressee are systematically encoded to express familiarity, formality, and respect.
Silverstein (Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996) proposed two orders of indexicality which can apply to the pragmatic and referential functions of forms of address. These forms have the capacity to index, or point to, (i) the relative formality of settings and degrees of deference and/or intimacy between speaker and interlocutor (first-order indexicality); and (ii) specific aspects of the individual’s identity in the social order (second-order indexicality). In this chapter I focus on two types of forms of address, vocatives and pronominal forms. Customers and servers select the appropriate forms of address across different phases of the interaction: openings (e.g. ‘Madam, what can I get you?’) and closings (‘Thanks, sir. You have a good night’), and during the negotiation of the request for service that requires an appropriate degree of formality in asymmetric interactions (Server: Can I help you, sir?; Customer: uh, yeah, could I have, uh:, a pound of roast beef?). The T and V forms have syntactic functions (i.e. initial, medial, or final utterance position) as well as pragmatic functions, such as expressing solidarity/involvement with, formality toward, or respect for the interlocutor.
In their seminal study of pronominal use, Brown and Gilman (Reference Brown, Gilman and Sebeok1960) proposed a model of the indexicality of second-person pronouns (T and V) in European languages that is based on two variables, the semantics of power and solidarity.1 In their model, power is both non-reciprocal and a relational concept that requires at least two interlocutors; for example, the superior uses T and receives V. In this asymmetrical relationship of unequal power, V expresses formality, respect, and deference. In contrast, in the solidarity semantic there is a symmetric relationship (power equals), as in friends using T (conveying familiarity or intimacy) or two managers addressing each other with V reciprocally to express deference or formality (power equal). This model, which is based on the analysis of different European languages, refers to an exemplary speaker who uses one form and is expected to receive either a T or V form in an asymmetric or symmetric situation. As noted by Silverstein and others, Brown and Gilman’s model is a “social-psychological one” (Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996: 275) that attempts to account for the use of pronominal forms in language and culture from a cognitive perspective, rather than from a sociocultural view. This cognitive model does not consider in detail the features of the communicative event that condition the use of pronominal forms, such as the age, gender, educational background, and degree of familiarity between the interlocutors. Pragmatic variation of the T and V forms is not addressed in Brown and Gilman’s model, as this model centers on alternation of T and V forms (for a discussion of Brown and Gilman’s model, see Blas-Arroyo [Reference Blas-Arroyo2005], Morford [Reference Morford1997], and Silverstein [Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996]).
According to Leech (Reference Leech, Hasselgård and Oksefjell1999), vocatives include a wide range of expressions. These include forms of endearment (e.g. ‘honey,’ ‘darling’), family terms (e.g. ‘mom,’ ‘daddy’), familiarizers (e.g. ‘dude,’ ‘buddy,’ ‘bro’), first names (shortened or in full) (e.g. ‘Michael’ or ‘Mike’), title and surname (e.g. ‘Mr. Smith,’ ‘Dr. Taylor’), and honorifics (e.g., ‘madam,’ ‘sir’). He further distinguished three functions: (i) attracting someone’s attention (attention-getting device), (ii) identifying someone as an addressee, and (iii) maintaining and reinforcing social relationships (p. 16). With regard to their syntactic position, Leech noted that initial vocatives combine functions (i) and (ii), whereas vocatives in medial and final position combine function (ii) with function (iii), “that of tuning, maintaining or reinforcing the social relations between speaker and addressee” (p. 116).
In this chapter I focus on the interpersonal function of vocatives with regard to their syntactic position in the utterance. Address terms have been examined in varieties of English and other languages (e.g. see Clyne, Norrby, and Warren Reference Clyne, Norrby and Warren2009; Leech Reference Leech, Hasselgård and Oksefjell1999; Morford Reference Morford1997) and across varieties of Spanish (e.g. Blas-Arroyo Reference Blas-Arroyo2005; Fontanella de Weinberg Reference Fontanella de Weinberg, Bosque and Demonte1999; Hummel, Kluge, and Vázquez Laslop Reference Hummel, Kluge and Laslop2010; Jørgensen and Aarli Reference Jørgensen, Aarli, Fernández and Placencia2011; Kaul de Marlangeon Reference Kaul de Marlangeon, García and Placencia2011; Moser Reference Moser and Schrader-Kniffki2006), including different regions in Mexico (e.g. Covarrubias Reference Covarrubias2002; Orozco Reference Orozco and Butragueño2006; Vázquez Laslop and Orozco Reference Laslop, Eugenia, Orozco, Hummel, Kluge and Laslop2010). However, in the context of service encounters any examination of indexical expressions is scarce (but see Kerbrat-Orecchioni [Reference Kerbrat-Orecchioni2006] and Placencia [Reference Placencia2001] and [Reference Placencia, Schneider and Barron2008]). In his detailed review of pronominal and address terms, Wardhaugh (Reference Wardhaugh2010) showed the extent to which variation in nominal forms (e.g. ‘sir,’ ‘doctor,’ ‘father’) and the traditional tu/vous (T/V) distinction is conditioned by macro-social factors such as gender, age, and region, and micro-social factors which include the situation, social distance, and power. His discussion includes the complex levels of honorifics from which one form is selected over another to express different degrees of politeness or social distance in Javanese and Japanese. In another study, using Silverstein’s (Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996) orders of indexicality mentioned above, Morford (Reference Morford1997) examined the strategic uses of French tu/vous in the workplace in situations where speakers, consciously aware of the social parameters of the situation, strategically switched from one form to another to create a special effect on the interlocutor. Such strategic use included switching to the T form to create an intimate or informal environment, or using the V form to establish a distant relationship with the interlocutor, in cases where the T form could have been used under normal circumstances.
Unlike modern English which has one pronominal form ‘you’ to address an interlocutor in both formal and informal contexts, Spanish uses two pronominal forms, an informal pronoun tú/vos (‘you-informal’) (T) and the formal form usted (‘you-formal’) (V). In other varieties of Spanish the T/V distinction adopts different forms: the informal plural forms include ustedes (mainly used in Latin America) and vosotros (spoken in most regions of Spain, but absent in the Canary Islands and America), while the singular T form vos is present in many regions of America, but absent in Spain and the Canary islands (Fontanella de Weinberg Reference Fontanella de Weinberg, Bosque and Demonte1999). And yet in other varieties of Central and South American Spanish, the pronominal forms usted and vos adopt singular interpersonal functions to express intimacy, deference, and politeness with power equals (e.g. friends, family) (e.g. Costa Rica [Moser Reference Moser and Schrader-Kniffki2006] and in other regions of Central and South America [see readings in Hummel, Kluge, and Vázquez Laslop Reference Hummel, Kluge and Laslop2010]). In the Mexican regions under investigation (Mérida [Yucatán], Guanajuato, and Mexico City), the pronominal forms used are tú (T) and usted (V) / ustedes (plural for informal and formal use).
8.3 Forms of address in supermarket delicatessens
In this section I examine the referential and pragmatic functions of address forms used in the supermarket delicatessens by analyzing 1,400 sales transactions (US = 700; Mexico = 700) (see Introduction, Table 1, and Chapter 3 for data collection procedures and a description of the setting [Figure 3.1]). Address forms include pronominal forms and vocatives (e.g. ‘madam,’ ‘sir,’ ‘Mike’) used to address a server or a customer. The encounters represented in the data are asymmetric interactions based on the institutional roles assigned to the participants, namely, a customer and a server. However, while the interlocutors may initiate the interaction with formal/deferential V or informal T form, the participants’ roles can change during the negotiation of the interaction. In Spanish, if the pronoun is absent, the degree of formality can be recovered from the morphology of the verb (e.g. me puede [usted] dar medio kilo de jamón? ‘can youV give me half a kilo of ham?’).2
8.3.1 Variation in use of pronominal forms
With regard to the Mexican interactions (male and female customers and servers), in 80% (558/700) of the transactions a pronoun (or verbal morphology of second-person address) was used by a male or female customer. Of these, 60% (337/558) of the customers employed the formal V form, while 40% (221/558) chose the solidarity T form. In contrast, servers addressing Mexican customers almost always used the V form 96% of the time (579/605 interactions), and only 4% (26/605) utilized the T form. In the Mexican delicatessen the V form predominated in customer–server interactions to index respect and deference. In 40% of the interactions, the customer employed the T form and most servers employed the V form, marking the encounter as asymmetric (first-order indexicality [Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996]).
The selection of the form of address was predominantly influenced by the gender of the interlocutor.3 Table 8.1 shows the selection of pronouns of address in 174 male-customer interactions and 180 female-customer interactions). (The → indicates the person to whom the T/V form was addressed.)
Table 8.1 Distribution of pronominal forms by gender in Mexican supermarket delicatessens
| Gender Customer → Server | T (tú) | V (usted) |
|---|---|---|
| M → M (19 interactions) | 74% (14/19) | 26% (5/19) |
| M → F (155 interactions) | 29% (45/155) | 71% (110/155) |
| F → F (165 interactions) | 37% (61/165) | 63% (104/165) |
| F → M (15 interactions) | 33% (5/15) | 67% (10/15) |
| Total: 354 | 35% (125 / 354) | 65% (229 / 354) |
As shown in Table 8.1, the V form predominated (65% or 229/354) over the T form (35% or 125/354) in the data. However, the pronominal selection was conditioned by the gender of the addressee. For example, the T form was frequently used in M → M interactions (customer → server) (74% or 14/19 interactions), while the V form occurred in other contexts. The V form was mainly employed in female–female interactions (63% or 104/165) or when the customer was male and the server female (M → F) (71% or 110/155) or with a female customer and a male server (F → M) (67% or 10/15). Although less frequent, the T form was employed more often in female–female (37% or 61/165) interactions than male–female (29% or 45/155). Further, the table shows that while the V form predominated in this Mexican region to express deference or respect toward the server or the customer, the T form was common in female speech to express solidarity and closeness (37%), as also reflected in the many address terms used during the transaction (see Table 8.2 below). In general, variation in pronominal forms was evident in male and female transactions initiated by the customer, but it was the gender of the server that conditioned the choice of the form. It should be noted that there were fewer male servers interacting with male or female customers, so these results need to be interpreted in light of the gender distribution in Table 8.1.
Table 8.2 Vocatives used by customers and servers in US and Mexican supermarket delicatessens
| Titles/honorifics | Family names | Endearments/Familiarizers | |
|---|---|---|---|
| US customer | sir, ma’am | man, dude, bro, bud, you guys, honey/hon, babe, sweethearta | |
| US server | sir, ma’am | honey/hon sweetness | |
| Mexican customer | señor ‘sir,’ señorita ‘miss,’ señora ‘ma’am,’b doña’‘madam’d | hija ‘daughter,’ hermano ‘brother,’ mamá ‘mom’c | mi vida ‘darling,’ chuli/chula ‘cutie,’ nena ‘babe,’ reina ‘queen,’ linda ‘beautiful,’ güera ‘blondie,’ amiga/amigo ‘girlfriend/friend,’ niña ‘girl,’ corazón ‘sweetheart,’chico ‘boy’ |
| Mexican server | señor ‘sir,’ joven ‘young man,’ caballero ‘gentleman,’ señorita ‘miss,’ señora ‘ma’am,’b reina ‘queen’ or its diminutive form reinita | madre ‘mother’c | nena ‘babe,’ amiga/o ‘girlfriend/friend,’ linda ‘beautiful,’corazón ‘sweetheart,’ mi amor ‘darling,’ hija ‘daughter,’ mi vida ‘my life,’ chica ‘girl,’ nené ‘baby,’ güerita ‘blondieD’ |
a This form of address was used by US female customers or servers addressing female customers/servers. Variants of this form included ‘sweet’ and ‘sweetness.’
b This form literally means ‘Mrs.’ Señora was used as a form of address by Mexican male and female customers addressing female servers. Variants of this form included seño, señito (diminutive).
c This form literally means ‘mother.’ Mamá was used as a form of address by Mexican male customers addressing female servers. Variants of this form comprised mami, mamita (diminutive). This form was used irrespective of the age of the interlocutor.
d This form can be loosely translated as ‘ma’dam’ doña. It was employed as a form of address by Mexican male customers addressing female servers. Variants of this form included doñita or the masculine form don (to address males).
8.3.2 Pragmatic variation in use of vocatives
Table 8.2 shows the distribution of the most frequent vocatives used by male and female customers and servers in the US and Mexican delicatessens (diminutives are marked with D). Following Leech’s (Reference Leech, Hasselgård and Oksefjell1999) classification of vocatives, the address terms employed in this section include three categories adapted for the present data: (1) titles (e.g. ‘Mr.’ and ‘Ms.’) and honorifics (e.g. ‘madam,’ ‘sir’) are included in one category; (2) family names referencing familial relationships (e.g. son, mother); and (3) forms of endearment (e.g. ‘babe,’ ‘darling,’ ‘hon,’ ‘love’) and familiarizers (e.g. ‘you guys,’ ‘man,’ ‘buddy’) are also categorized together.
As shown in Table 8.2, both US and Mexican customers and servers employed different address terms, but a much wider inventory of these forms is evident in the Mexican data. US servers selected four different forms to address a male or female customer; of these, the honorifics ‘sir’ and ‘madam/ma’am’ were most frequent. Two additional forms of endearment were mainly used by female servers when addressing female customers ‘honey/hon’ or ‘sweetness’ (e.g. ‘Hi sweetness, how are you tonight?’). US customers employed ten different forms when addressing a male or female server, the most frequent of which were the honorifics ‘madam/ma’am.’ Most female customers used terms of endearment to express solidarity or informality with female servers (e.g. ‘honey/hon,’ ‘babe,’ ‘sweetheart,’ ‘sweetness,’ ‘sweetie’), while males who were regular customers selected familiarizers to address male servers (e.g. ‘man,’ ‘dude,’ ‘bro,’ ‘bud’).
In contrast, as seen in Table 8.2, Mexican customers and servers selected sixteen different forms to address male or female servers. And, unlike the US customers and servers who used two main honorifics (‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’), the Mexican customers and servers used the Spanish equivalents of these forms as well as other titles such as caballero ‘gentleman/sir’ (servers), joven (‘young man’), don or doña (‘sir’ or ‘madam’), and the honorific or kinship form reina ‘queen’ (or its diminutive form reinita). These forms are often employed in the Mexican context (and in other Spanish-speaking regions) with a person of higher status to express respect and deference. Family names (e.g. madre ‘mother,’ hija ‘daughter,’ mamá ‘mom’) were used only by Mexican customers and servers. Likewise, terms of endearment were more frequent and varied among the Mexican customers and servers.
Forms of endearment in Mexican society (and in other regions of the Spanish-speaking world [see Márquez Reiter and Placencia Reference Márquez Reiter2005]) reinforce the bonds of affiliation between the interlocutors and emphasize involvement with the addressee. Diminutives (e.g. güerita ‘blondie’) or personal forms such as mi vida ‘my darling,’ mi amor ‘my love,’ or amigo/a (‘friend/girlfriend’) make the interaction more intimate, emphasizing person-orientedness (Mexican context) vs. task-orientedness (US context). Fant (Reference 260Fant, Ehlich and Wagner1995) introduced the concept of person-orientedness to refer to paying attention to the person with whom one interacts, whereas task-orientedness focuses on completing the task. Results similar to those reflected here were observed in Placencia (Reference Placencia2005) in her analysis of small shop transactions in Quito, Ecuador (person-orientedness) and Madrid, Spain (task-orientedness). The examples below show instances of address terms in the Mexican (1a) and US (1b) data (address terms are marked in bold): (server [S]; customer [C]) (formal address form is marked V and informal address form as T. A diminutive form is marked D in the English translation):
[1] Service encounters in supermarket delicatessens
a. Mexican delicatessen (females)
01 S: Cuarenta y tres ↑ Forty-three ↑ 02 C: cuarenta y cuatro, ya estoy forty-four – that’s me 03 ((bell rings to signal ticket number)) 04 jamón de pavo horneado Lassa, mami Lassa baked turkey ham, momD 05 S: ¿cuánto, amiga? how much, girlfriend 06 C: un cuarto, pero no muy delgadito, chica a quarter (of a kilo), but not too thin, girl 07 S: más delgadito, ¿así está bien? a little thinnerD, is this OK? 08 C: ándale there youT go ((28 turns omitted) 09 S: ¿algo más que le pueda servir? can I get youV anything else? 10 C: nada más, mi amor that’s it, my love 11 S: ((delivers product)) 12 C: gracias, mi vida. thanks, darling. b. US delicatessen (female server; male customer),
((11 turns of transcript omitted)) 01 S: half a pound thi:n ↑ 02 C: yes, ma’am 03 S: how’s that sir? 04 C: that looks good. ((four turns of transcript omitted))
In the Mexican exchange in (1a) the customer and the server (females) used five different address forms to express closeness or solidarity: family terms (line 04, mami ‘momD’), familiarizers (lines 05–06, amiga ‘girlfriend’ and chica ‘girl’), and forms of endearment (lines 10 and 12, mi amor ‘my love’ and mi vida ‘darling (lit. my life).’ In contrast, in the American interaction (1b), the customer and server used reciprocal honorifics (lines 02–03, ‘sir’ and ‘ma’am’), emphasizing distance or formality between the interlocutors. The Mexican interaction shows solidarity politeness through the use of camaraderie and involvement forms (focus on the interlocutor), while the American interaction marks a preference for deference politeness (focus on getting the job done) (Scollon and Scollon Reference Scollon and Scollon2001).
8.4 Forms of address in Mexican market sales transactions
In this section I provide an analysis of the pronouns of address and vocatives in 395 sales transactions in a single open-air market in Yucatán, Mexico. The market interactions are more informal and reflect the physical environment in which they take place, that is, individual kiosks without walls, all under one roof, operated by families of vendors. Unlike the supermarket delicatessen encounters that take place in a formal setting (where hired servers work different shifts for a national chain, or an independent employer), the market transactions are characterized by an informal setting, that is, vendors who are family members and who are always there when the market is open, and customers and vendors who interact with each other on a daily or weekly basis (see Introduction, Table 1, and Chapter 5, Section 5.3, for additional information on the setting [Figure 5.1] and data collection procedures).
8.4.1 Variation in use of pronominal forms
In the context of open-air market service encounters, Mexican speakers of this Mexican region (Yucatán) distinguish between a formal usted ‘you-formal’ (V) and an informal tú ‘you-informal’ pronoun (T). Figure 8.1 shows the distribution of the presence and absence of T/V forms that occurred in customers’ (first-initiated request) and vendors’ responses to the request for service (395 interactions).4
Figure 8.1 Use and non-use of T/V forms in Mexican market sales transactions by gender
The V form (usted) was preferred by the customers (42.5% or 168/395]) and vendors (31.9% or 126/395) over the T form (tú) (customers: 28.6% or 113/395; vendors: 3% or 12/395). In many cases, the transactions were carried out with elliptical or verbless requests (28.9% or 114/395) or simply a vendor response (65.1% or 257/395) (e.g. vendor: ‘yes, anything else?’). In these cases the presence of T or V forms could not be identified from the customers’ request (see note 2). Similar to the pronominal use in the Mexican delicatessens (Section 8.3.1), in the Mexican market the use of the V form – unmarked indexical to address the vendor or customer – represents first-order indexicality (Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996), which expresses respect and deference.
With regard to gender differences, the V form was utilized more frequently by female customers (V: 49.6% or 136/274 [T: 23.4% or 64/274]), while the T form predominated among male customers (T: 40.5% or 49/121 [V: 26.4% or 32/121]). Again, the address forms could not be recovered in a portion of the female (none: 27% or 74/274) and male customer data (33.1% or 40/121). Although pronominal selection was conditioned by the gender of the customer, the presence of the interlocutor (vendor) also determined pronominal selection, as shown in Table 8.3.
Table 8.3 Use of pronominal forms in Mexican market sales transactions by gender
| Vendor (by gender) | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Customer (by gender) | T (tú) | V (usted) | Form not used | Total | |||
| Male | Female | Male | Female | Male | Female | ||
| Female | 24.7% (22/89) | 25.9% (7/27) | 52.8% (47/89) | 25.9% (7/27) | 22.5% (20/89) | 48.2% (13/27) | 116 |
| Male | 43% (34/79) | 29.7% (11/37) | 27.9% (22/79) | 27% (10/37) | 29.1% (23/79) | 43.2% (16/37) | 116 |
Table 8.3 shows the distribution of pronominal forms in 232 market encounters, including 116 male customers interacting with 79 male vendors and 37 female vendors, and 116 female customers interacting with 89 male vendors and 27 female vendors. It should be noted that interactions with male vendors predominated in the data (72% or 168/232 interactions) (female vendors: 28% or 64/232). The V form prevailed among female customers interacting with a male vendor (52.8%), whereas in female–female interactions both forms were used equally (25.9%). On the contrary, the T form was more frequent among male customers interacting with a male vendor (43%), while in male–female interactions no major difference was noted (27–29.7%). In this Mexican market, 40.5% (47/116) of the female customers selected the V form to address a male vendor. This form was infrequent in male–male interactions. Further, variation with respect to these forms is noted in male–female and female–female interactions where both forms were selected with low percentages. A Chi-square test for independence showed that the differences in the preference for pronominal form are significant when a female customer interacts with a male or female vendor, X2 (1, N = 116): 36.7, p < .0001 (predominantly selecting the V form). Similarly, a Chi-square test for independence indicated that the differences are significant when a male customer interacts with a male or female vendor, X2 (1, N = 116): 13.34, p < .001 (predominantly selecting the T form).
These results show that the presence of a male vendor influenced pronominal selection: female customers utilized the V form to express distance or respect (a preference for deference politeness), while male customers generally used the T form to convey solidarity politeness or informality with a male vendor (Scollon and Scollon Reference Scollon and Scollon2001).
8.4.2 Pragmatic variation in use of vocatives
Table 8.4 shows the selection of vocatives used by male and female customers and vendors at a Mexican open-air market. Vocatives employed included: first names, titles and honorifics, family names, and endearments and familiarizers. (Diminutives are marked with D.)
Table 8.4 Use of vocatives in Mexican market sales transactions by gender
| First names | Titles/honorifics | Family names | Endearments/Familiarizers | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Male customer | Isidro | seño ‘ma’am’; don ‘sir’ (with respect) | mi amor ‘my darling,’ jefe ‘boss,’ reina ‘queen’; compadre ‘buddy’ (used as friend, brother) | |
| Female customer | Isidro, PabloD | doña, don (‘madam’ or ‘sir’ [with respect]), señor ‘sir,’ marchanta ‘merchant’ | morena ‘dark-skinned (female),’ flaco ‘slim,’ rey ‘king,’ reina ‘queen’ | |
| Male vendor | caballero ‘gentleman,’ don ‘sir’ (with respect’) | mamá ‘mother,’* papaD ‘daddy,’ nené ‘baby’ | compadre ‘buddy,’flaco ‘slim,’ chula ‘beautiful,’ chuli ‘cutie,’ mi amor ‘my darling,’ reina ‘queen,’ reinita’‘queenD’ | |
| Female vendor | doña, don ‘madam/sir’ (with respect) | papá ‘dad,’** nené ‘baby’ | reina ‘queen’ |
* This form literally means ‘mother.’ In the market corpus it was used as a form of address by male vendors with female customers. Variants of this form included mami and the diminutive forms mamita, madrecita, mamicita, and mamacita. These expressions were used as forms of endearment and can be loosely translated as ‘honey,’ ‘sweetie,’ or ‘hon.’
** This form literally means ‘father.’ It is often used by female customers when addressing a male vendor. Variants of this form included the diminutive papacito. Similar to mamá, the use of papá (and its variants) expresses affection and can be loosely translated as ‘dear.’
Male and female customers and vendors employed a wide selection of terms of address in their interactions. These included first names (first column), titles (e.g. don ‘sir’ or doña ‘madam’ with respect, e.g. don Pablito) and honorifics (e.g. ‘sir,’ ‘gentleman’) (second column). There is also ample variety of names related to family members when addressing the vendor or the customer, and many of these occur in the diminutive (e.g. mamacita ‘momD’; papacito ‘dadD’) (third column). In addition, terms of endearment and familiarizers were employed to express solidarity or involvement with a male vendor, namely, flaco ‘slim,’ chula ‘beautiful,’ morena ‘dark-skinned woman,’ mi amor ‘my love,’ or with terms such as compadre (‘buddy’; here used as ‘brother’ or ‘close friend’). Family names and terms of endearment were utilized by both male and female vendors. Other forms of endearment that were used equally by male customers and vendors to express affection included jefe ‘boss,’ rey ‘king,’ reina ‘queen,’ or its diminutive form reinita ‘queenD.’ These vocatives were employed to reinforce the bonds of affiliation or solidarity between customer–vendor interactions.
The interaction in (2) shows alternation of pronominal forms (T and V) and the use of different vocatives between a male vendor and a female customer. Pronouns of address (also implicit in the verb) are underlined and terms of address are marked in bold.
[2] Pronominal forms T and V and vocatives (male vendor; female customer)
01 V: Mamicita linda, buenos días Lovely ladyD, good morning 02 C: papacito lindo, buenos días, ¿cómo ha estado (usted)? Bien ↑ = good lookin’D, good morning, how’ve youV been? Well ↑ 03 V: = maso maso = so so 04 C: chile pimiento ↑ cherry pepper ↑ 05 V: pimiento ↑ cinco, dos y peso cherry pepper ↑ five, two and one peso 06 C: ese es de peso ↑ ((points to product)) that one costs one peso ↑ 07 V: sí mamá, un pesitoD, 08 p’al caldito ↑ yes, honey (lit. ‘mom’), one pesoD, for brothD ↑ 09 C: p’al calditoD, 10 sí – ahí esta, papa for brothD, yes – here it is, dear (lit. ‘dad’) 11 ((customer picks up product and pays)) 12 V: gracias, mamá, un peso thanks, honey (lit. ‘mom’), a peso 13 ((vendor receives payment – noise of coins)) 14 V: gracias, que Dios te bendiga, mamita thanks, God bless youT, sweetie (lit. momD) 15 C: igualmente, papacito, igualmente likewise, dear, likewise 16 V: feliz fin de semana have a great weekend 17 C: así es ↓ I will ↓
This interaction is realized across four main sequences with vocatives and T/V alternation: the opening sequence (lines 01–03), the request–response sequence (04–09), payment sequence (10–13), and the terminal sequence (lines 14–17). In this interaction, the female customer used the formal form of address V implicit in the verb (¿cómo ha estado? ‘how have youV been?’ line 02), whereas the male vendor employed the informal pronoun T, as shown in the blessing sequence that ended the interaction (e.g. gracias, que Dios te bendiga ‘thanks, may God bless youT,’ line 14). In addition to the unequal and consistent pronominal use (T used by male vendor and V used by female customer), the participants employed a variety of address terms related to family relationships. Some of these forms were realized with the diminutive (e.g. lines 1–2; lines 14–15) to express solidarity. Other family terms functioned as terms of endearment, such as mamá ‘dear’ (lit. ‘mom’)’, papá ‘dear’ (lit. ‘dad’) (lines 07, 10, 12). Following Leech (Reference Leech, Hasselgård and Oksefjell1999), in this interaction, as well as in Table 8.4, vocatives often occurred in medial, but predominantly in final position. Final vocatives combine the pragmatic function of “identifying someone as an addressee” with that of “maintaining and reinforcing social relationships” (p. 166).
In the interaction in (2), politeness is manifested discursively through selection of T and V forms and family terms that convey respect and involvement with the interlocutor. Respect, or respeto, is not seen as a negative politeness strategy (as in Brown and Levinson Reference Brown1987). Instead, in this community of practice, respect represents a sociocultural expectation that creates and maintains harmony between the interlocutors (Spencer-Oatey Reference Spencer-Oatey and Spencer-Oatey2000). Respeto enhances the association or involvement with the interlocutor by preserving the vendor’s and customer’s identity face, that is, recognizing their roles as vendor or customer. By using these forms, the interlocutors enhance involvement, promote discourse flow during the negotiation of service, and further the interpersonal relations between them.5
Pragmatic variation at the stylistic level (T and V forms and vocatives) is conditioned by both macro- and micro-social factors. Previous research in service encounters has shown that in Ecuadorian (Placencia Reference Placencia, Schneider and Barron2008) and French service encounters (Kerbrat-Orecchioni Reference Kerbrat-Orecchioni2006; Lindenfeld Reference Lindenfeld1990), the V form predominates in small shops and markets. However, in a different study at a butcher’s shop in Villefranche (Hmed Reference Hmed, Kerbrat-Orecchioni and Traverso2008), it was shown that bilingual residents employed formal address forms (pronouns and vocatives) in French–French interactions and the informal T in French–Arabic interactions with Tunisian vendors. And Placencia’s (Reference Placencia, Schneider and Barron2008) contrastive study of service encounters (small shops) in Quito and Manta found that Ecuadorians from the coast (Manta) expressed less deference in their choice of address forms (similar to Spaniards; Placencia Reference Placencia2005) than Quiteño customers who selected both deferential address forms and a variety of terms of endearment and rapport-building strategies to express interpersonal concern for the interlocutor. However, with the exception of Lindenfeld (Reference Lindenfeld1990), the aforementioned studies focused on the selection of forms of address from the customer’s perspective.
As shown in previous research on pronominal and nominal address forms in Mexico (Lastra de Suárez Reference Lastra de Suárez1972; Orozco Reference Orozco and Butragueño2006; Schwenter Reference Schwenter1993; Vázquez Laslop and Orozco Reference Laslop, Eugenia, Orozco, Hummel, Kluge and Laslop2010), the T form is used among the younger generation in situations of solidarity, and its use is spreading to other contexts. The V form seems to be restricted to older generation speakers to express respect and deference. With respect to the data analyzed in this chapter, the V form was predominantly used by both customers and vendors to signal respeto in the transaction according to the institutional and social expectations of the service encounters (first-order indexicality). The selection of one pronoun over another was also conditioned by the gender of the vendor or the customer, and the degree of familiarity between them as a result of their frequency of interaction.
With regard to the preference of the T form in male-customer speech in the Mexican market analyzed, one needs to explore the possibility of whether the preference for the informal T form might be due to unequal social standing between some of the customers (monolingual speakers of Spanish) interacting with some Maya-speaking vendors from rural areas. If this were the case, it would suggest a situation similar to that observed in La Paz, Bolivia between institutional representatives addressing indigenous people with derogatory remarks and informal T form to express inequality (Placencia Reference Placencia2001). In the Mexican market under investigation, this does not seem to be the case, however, since most Mexican male speakers who used T forms also employed positive politeness strategies, such as the name of the vendor (showing familiarity) and forms of address to express affiliation with the interlocutor (e.g. compadre [lit. ‘godfather,’ used as ‘friend,’ ‘brother’]), reina ‘queen’, or madrecita ‘motherD’ (lit. ‘little mother’) (by a male vendor). And in interactions where no familiarity was noted between the interlocutors, both interlocutors utilized the formal form V to express respect, or the T form accompanied by nominal address terms to express affiliation with the interlocutor. Thus, the possibility of whether Mexican male customers chose the familiar T form to express condescension when addressing the vendor is ruled out in the current Mexican context of public market service encounters, although this situation needs further investigation.6
Mexicans of this southern region invested high levels of solidarity politeness during the negotiation of service, but at the same time, they maintained respeto during the sales transaction. Since both customers and vendors used a wide variety of forms of address (e.g. names, titles, family names, terms of endearment, and terms of hierarchy), there seems to be a preference for involvement or solidarity politeness (Scollon and Scollon Reference Scollon and Scollon2001) in this Mexican community. The selection of these forms is reciprocal, especially in interactions with customers who interact with the same vendor on a regular basis. In this Mexican market, respeto is expressed by means of the V form not as a negative politeness strategy (distance-based) (Brown and Levinson Reference Brown1987); instead, it is employed as a discourse strategy that fosters interpersonal relations and secures a positive outcome to the interaction. Solidarity and respeto are two sociocultural values that are well regarded among buyers and sellers of this Mexican market.
8.5 Pragmatic variation in pronominal use
In light of existing research on address terms (see Section 8.2), pronominal forms in Spanish show alternation and pragmatic variation. Alternation of pronominal use occurs when the same form is used consistently by the speaker and a different form is used by the interlocutor, as in a boss [V]–employee [T] relationship or between a vendor (T) and a customer (V). According to previous research (Blas-Arroyo Reference Blas-Arroyo2005; Kaul de Marlangeon Reference Kaul de Marlangeon, García and Placencia2011), pragmatic variation in pronominal use occurs when either the customer or the vendor strategically switches from one pronominal form to another within the same interaction. This represents a discourse strategy that is conditioned by contextual factors such as the type of interaction (e.g. a sales transaction vs. colloquial conversation), the participants’ roles, the communicative action performed (e.g. request for service, clarification request, offer, or relational/social talk), or the context of the situation.
In his analysis of pronominal use in Peninsular Spanish during a sales transaction, Blas-Arroyo (Reference Blas-Arroyo2005) used Gumperz’s (Reference Gumperz1982) notion of contextualization cues (see Chapter 1, Section 1.3.5) to examine pragmatic variation in T/V. Following Gumperz (Reference Gumperz1982), Blas-Arroyo refers to contextualization cues as “semiotic indices that permit the renegotiation of the social roles carried out by the participants during the course of the interaction, as well as the discourse strategies” (Reference Blas-Arroyo2005: 16, my translation).
In this book, pragmatic variation in pronominal use is analyzed as a discourse strategy. The data reported in this section are taken from the following chapters: delicatessens (Chapter 3), small shops (Chapter 4), and the open-air market in Mexico (Chapter 5) (for information about each data set see Introduction, Table 1)
In example (3), taken from the market data, the customer switches from the use of solidarity T to deferential V:
[3] T → V switch: Market service encounter in Yucatán, Mexico (female customer; male vendor)
01 C: →: ¿Tienes bolsitas – bolsitas? Do youT have bagsD – bagsD? 02 V: ancha tengo – estas tengo I have a wide one – I have these ((points to product)) 03 C: están muy grandes = they are very big = 04 V: = está muy grande? = it’s very big? 05 C: → ¿no tiene más chica? don’t youV have a smaller one? 06 V: no, no tengo. no, I don’t.
In this exchange the customer used the T form to initiate the interaction with a request for availability, followed by the vendor’s response (lines 01–04). After determining that the product is unsuitable, the customer switched to the V form to ask for additional information (line 05). The request includes negation and the V form to express distance, followed by non-compliance (line 06). By shifting to the formal form, the customer expresses respect and reduces the level of imposition of the request (second-order indexicality [Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996]).
In the interaction in (4) the vendor opens the transaction with the V form and later switches to the T form:
[4] V → T switch: Market service encounter in Yucatán, Mexico (males)
01 V: → ¿Qué busca caballero? What are youV looking for, gentleman? 02 C: ¿a cómo está el ajo? how much is the garlic? 03 V: el kilo vale 40 40 (pesos) a kilo 04 V: seis pesitos, caballero six pesosD, sir 05 catorce de cambio fourteen (pesos) change 06 C: OK, muchas gracias OK, thanks very much 07 V: → toma la bolsa, papi (youT) take the bag, dadD 08 Toma (youT) take it 09 C: ah, OK muchas gracias. ah, OK, thanks very much.
The vendor opens the interaction with the V form and addresses the customer with the vocative ‘gentleman’ (line 01) to express deference and respect. After the positive outcome of the transaction, the vendor switches to the solidarity T form using an imperative form (toma la bolsa, papi ‘youT take the bag’), softened by the vocative papi ‘dadD’ (lines 07–08). The switch to the imperative T form expresses solidarity politeness as a result of the successful outcome of the interaction (line 09).
The example in (5) shows variation in pronominal use at different stages of the interaction:
[5] T → V & V → T switch: market service encounter, Yucatán, Mexico (male customer; female clerk)
This interaction – which consists of 22 interventions and one non-verbal action (line 04, delivery of product – shows evidence of pragmatic variation in T/V use. The customer opens the interaction with an elliptical request with a high terminal (line 01), followed by an imperative verb using the T form (dame cinco ‘give meT five’[ line 03]). Then, the customer switches to V to issue a request for clarification (line 07, ¿no tiene? ‘don’t youV have any?’), followed by the vendor’s response of a blunt ‘no’ (line 08). In the next stage of the transaction, the customer uses the T form three times in the same sequence (lines 9–11). The next sequence (lines 12–17) consists of a first-pair part (line 12), a repair sequence (lines 13–16), and the second-pair part which is delayed until line 17. The repair sequence includes the trouble source with the repair initiator mande ↑ (‘pardon ↑’ [lit. ‘youV order’]) using the V form and a high terminal (line 13), the repair in the form of a clarification request on the part of the vendor (line 14), and the response which shows understanding (lines 15–16). Next, a shift of alignment (Goffman Reference Goffman1981; Goodwin Reference Goodwin, Slobin, Gerhardt, Kyratzis and Guo1996) is initiated by the customer who asks for a bag, using the V form, with a request and a reformulation of the previous request (lines 18 and 20). This sequence comprises a reformulated request – the first-pair part (line 20) – an insertion sequence in the form of relational talk (lines 21–27), and the second-pair part which is delayed until line 28. The first request is prefaced by the emphatic sí ‘yes,’ which in Spanish is often used to create an expectation of compliance with the request (line 18). However, upon the non-response on the part of the vendor, the customer issues a second request prefaced by negation, a diminutive (bolsita ‘bagD’), and the V form to express deference (line 20). In both requests the customer used the verb prestar which literally means ‘to lend,’ followed by a joking sequence (lines 21–27). In this change of frame (from transactional to relational talk [joking sequence]), the customer and the vendor switch to the symmetric T form to express involvement (lines 24 and 27 [customer] and in line 26 [vendor]). In the completion of the second-pair part. the vendor switches back to the V form to complete the transaction (line 28), followed by the terminal exchange in the form of reciprocal expressions of gratitude (lines 29–30).
The following example (6) from the Mexican delicatessen shows a shift of pronoun (V → T) when the vendor makes an offer to the customer (line 07):
[6] V → T switch: delicatessen in Yucatán, Mexico (female customer; male vendor)
01 V: →Señito, buenos días [¿que le servimos? Ma’amD, good morning, [what can we get youV? 02 C: [buenos días, [good morning 03 pechuga de pavo – ¿de cuál tiene? turkey breast – what kind do youV have? 04 V: pechuga de extra fina Light deli extra fine Light deli breast 05 a setenta y cinco it’s seventy-five 06 C: está buena esa ↑ is that one good ↑ 07 V: →¿quieres probarlo? do youT want to taste it? 08 C: sí, yes, 09 V: la turkey lite de Fud ↑ the Fud turkey lite ↑ 10 C: ajá m-hm 11 V: algo más para usted ↑ anything else for youV ↑ 12 C: nada más. that’s it. 13 V: pase – buen día (youV) go ahead – have a good day 14 C: gracias, igualmente. thank you, you too.
In this exchange, both the vendor and the customer open the interaction with a formal style, using the V form in phatic talk (reciprocal greeting) (lines 01–02). After the customer’s requests for additional information, the vendor responds with an offer to taste the product using the T form, followed by the customer’s compliance (lines 07–10). The vendor then switches back to V, and both interlocutors end the interaction in a deferential style (lines 11–14). The selection of the T form in the offer creates a special effect on the interlocutor, such as establishing rapport or solidarity politeness. Here the switch from V to T when making the offer (initiated by vendor) functions as a contextualization cue (Gumperz Reference Gumperz and Tannen1981), inviting the customer to try the product and expecting compliance with the offer.
Finally, in the following interaction (7) from a small store in Mexico City, the female customer switches from V to T in the middle of the interaction (line 10):
[7] V → T switch (Mexico City, small store) (female customer; male vendor)
01 V: Hola Teresita Hello, TeresaD 02 C: → me da.. … ¡hola! (youV) give me … hi! 03 ¿tiene salchicha de 24? do youV have 24 (-peso) sausage? 04 V: sí yes 05 C: ¿me da medio? (youV) give me half? 06 V: uhm … de doce, dieciséis … uhm … the one that costs twelve, sixteen (pesos)… 07 C: bueno:: deme medio well:: (youV) give me half 08 V: ¿medio paquete o …? = half a package or …? = 09 C: = no, medio kilo = no, half a kilo ((10 seconds later)) 10 → ¿tienes frijoles refritos? do youT have refried beans? 11 V: sí yes 12 C: me das uno, también ↑ (youT) give me one (kilo), too ↑ 13 ¿cuánto sería? how much would it be? 14 V: son trece, veintitrés pesos it’s thirteen, twenty-three pesos 15 C: uhm uhm 16 V: bayos refritos ↑ refried bayo beans ↑ 17 C: ajá m-hmm 18 ((vendor delivers product)) 19 C: gracias thanks 20 ¿me regalas una bolsita? can youT give me a bagD? 21 V: claro que sí of course 22 ((vendor delivers bag)) 23 C: gracias thanks 24 V: ándale, pues. OK, then (youT’re welcome).
In this interaction the customer uses the V form during the negotiation of the first transaction (lines 01–09). After a 10-second pause, the customer switches to the T form to negotiate the second transaction and payment sequence (10–19). Use of the T form continues in the next sequence: the customer requests a bag (lines 20–22) with the hedge verb regalas ‘to give as a gift’ and a diminutive (¿me regalas una bolsita? ‘Can youT give me a bagD?’). In the terminal exchange the vendor closes the interaction with the T form (lines 23–24). The discourse strategy, pragmatic switch from V to T, occurs as a result of the successful negotiation of the first transaction. The contextualization cue (T form) perceived by the vendor as an involvement marker expresses familiarity and solidarity politeness. This shift in alignment leads to the positive outcome of the interaction.
Pragmatic variation in pronominal use is motivated by both situational and discourse factors. As seen in example (7), a change of alignment, shifting from V and T forms, occurred to signal a shift from transactional to relational talk. The institutionalized setting creates an expectation of pronominal use based on the contextualization cues in face-to-face encounters (verbal and non-verbal). Discourse factors that triggered pragmatic variation included the progression of the interaction (greetings, request for service, payment, closing), the participants’ roles (service provider and service seeker), changes from transactional to non-transactional talk (e.g. relational talk, joking episodes), and an expectation that the sales transaction was accomplished. Shifts in pronominal forms (T → V or V → T) can be explained as an instance of second-order indexicality (Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996). Overall, selection of these forms is not deliberate but, rather, motivated by situational, sociocultural, and discourse factors.
8.6 Conclusion
This chapter examined the referential and pragmatic functions of vocatives and pronominal forms (stylistic level) in the context of US and Mexican supermarket delicatessens and in Mexican small shops and an open-air market. Vocatives and pronominal forms were analyzed from the perspective of the customer and the vendor to examine pragmatic variation by gender. In the Mexican regions under investigation, the T and V forms are used to foster interpersonal relations, such as familiarity and solidarity politeness (T) and formality, deference, and respect (V). Of these, the V form represents the most frequent pronominal form used by Mexican customers and servers/vendors. With regard to the syntactic position of vocatives, the medial, and in particular, the final vocative, were more frequent than the initial vocative. It suggests that the function of creating and reinforcing social relations is an important sociocultural expectation in Mexican service encounters.
Two types of pronominal variation were analyzed: alternation and pragmatic variation. First, alternation of pronominal forms occurred when both interlocutors used different pronouns consistently throughout the interaction, indexing levels of formality or deference (first-order indexicality). This type of variation was examined in the first part of this chapter (Sections 8.3 and 8.4). Second, pragmatic variation of pronominal use was realized when the customer or the vendor/server switched from one form to another in the same situation in order to create a different effect on the interlocutor; for instance, to convey solidarity politeness, deference, or respect (second-order indexicality [Silverstein Reference Silverstein, Ide, Parker and Sunaoshi1996]) (Section 8.5). A shift from one form to another represents appropriate behavior that is characteristic of service encounters in these communities. Participants in the Mexican context showed an orientation toward solidarity politeness and a concern for the interlocutor (involvement face), while in the US encounters participants displayed an orientation toward completing the task (independence face) (Scollon and Scollon Reference Scollon and Scollon2001). The notion of respeto in Mexican society indexes involvement and a concern to express quality face (Spencer-Oatey Reference Spencer-Oatey and Spencer-Oatey2000). In Spanish, the selection of pronouns of address and vocatives indexes different degrees of formality and polite behavior. The selection of T/V forms is negotiated according to the sequential demands of each phase of the interaction, namely, the opening (greetings), the negotiation of the transaction (request–response sequence), the payment sequence, and the terminal exchange (farewell).
