Nos fuimos a la casa, y mi mamá: "¿estaban lanzándose por la quebrada?", "¡no, mamá!", "¡claro que sí!": estudio piloto de las citas conversacionales en el habla de Caracas

Abstract

Two of the most frequently used quoting procedures in verbal face-to-face interaction are direct and indirect styles (Marcuschi, 1997). This research describes, from a syntactic-pragmatic perspective, the use of both procedures by a sample of six speakers from the Corpus sociolingüístico de Caracas 2004-2008 (Bentivoglio & Malaver, 2006). The following aspects are analyzed: frequency of use of direct and indirect styles, forms of expression in speech, verbs that introduce quotes, speech attribution, discursive functions of both styles in interaction and quoting mechanisms used according to the sex of the speakers. The most relevant findings of the study show that the speakers: i) tend to use the direct style (93% of all the cases studied), especially through the conjugated verb decir; ii) prefer to quote themselves, and iii) quote mostly to narrate an anecdote (61%) or express a thought (19%). Also, according to the results, young men use the quoting procedures much more than women (75% vs. 25%, that is, 367 vs. 120 cases).