The use of emphatic pero in the PRESEEA corpus from Santiago de Chile

Abstract

This investigation is concerned with the use of pero at a discourse level and its sociolinguistic stratification in the corpus of the Proyecto Para el Estudio Sociolingüístico del Español de España y América (PRESEEA), corresponding to Spanish native speakers from Santiago de Chile. Firstly, the study determines the elements that are emphasized through the use of pero. Secondly, the frequency of the particle's use is established in order to determine any variation between its utilization and the speakers' sociodemographic factors. In addition, the analysis seeks to correlate the frequency of use with the type of discursive sequence (narrative or argumentative) in which it is found. Data analysis allowed us to conclude that the elements emphasized through pero are nouns, adjectives, adverbs, reduplications and others, such as sentences. The study demonstrates that this particle is mainly employed in the narrative discourse of women, and that it is a resource mostly found in youth language from the speech community under investigation.