Pragmatic Variation: Mexico
Mexico is a country located in North America, bounded on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the North Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Mexico is a federal constitutional republic, consisting of 31 states and a federal district, Mexico City (Ciudad de México), which is one of the most populous cities on Earth. Covering almost 2 million square kilometers, Mexico is the 6th largest country in America by total area and 15th largest in the world. With a population of about 108 million, it is the 11th most populous country and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world.
The pragmatics of Mexican Spanish includes an analysis of some speech acts (production and perception) and different interactional aspects of conversation in a few regions of Mexico. Below you can listen and view examples of different speech acts and features of conversation (discourse markers, pragmatic routines, conversational interaction) in different regions of Mexico.
Speech acts in Mexican Spanish include:
- Refusals to invitations, to requests, and to suggestions in Tlaxcala (Félix-Brasdefer 2003, 2006).
- Requests in Tlaxcala (Félix-Brasdefer 2005a) and Mexico City (Félix-Brasdefer 2005b), and perception of requests (Curcó 1998; Curcó and De Fina 2002).
- Compliments in Puebla (Nelson & Hall 1999).
Conversational organization in Mexican Spanish:
- Repetition and back-channels as an interactional strategy in Mexico City (Musselman Shank 2006)
- Discourse markers: Pragmatic functions of O sea in Tlaxcala, Mexico City, Monterrey (Félix-Brasdefer 2005), pragmatic functions of siempre in Mexico City (Curcó 2004).
- Realization and perception of insistence as an interactional strategy (Félix-Brasdefer 2006).
Below you can listen and view examples of different speech acts and features of conversation (discourse markers, pragmatic routines, conversational interaction) in different regions of Mexico.