Yo digo: "bueno, vale, de Venezuela, Caracas, y del interior, Petare". Las citas en estilo directo e indirecto en el español hablado en Caracas

Abstract

In this article, I analyze quotes in direct and indirect styles used by a sample of 16 speakers with low educational attainment, taken from the Corpus sociolingüístico del habla de Caracas, Preseea-Caracas 2004-2010. The analysis was carried out on the basis of Gallucci’s (2010) model and it focuses on the following aspects: types of quotes, grammatical forms that introduce quotes, lexical meaning of the conjugated verb decir, speech attribution and pragmatic functions of quotes. Additionally, quoting procedures were analyzed according to both age and sex. Results show the following: speakers prefer to use the direct style; quotations with and without verbs are used in the same proportion; the conjugated verb decir is mostly used to mean manifestar (express an idea); speakers prefer to quote somebody else’s words, and the preferred pragmatic function of quotes is to narrate an anecdote. The analysis of the social variables shows that quotes are mostly used by the younger speakers and women of the sample.