Introduction
The aim of the Val.Es.Co. research group is to describe and explain colloquial Spanish at its different levels of analysis on the basis of a basically oral corpus, obtained directly from spontaneous conversation and other types of discourse. The initial hypothesis of this research project, confirmed by the analyses carried out so far, was that the functioning of colloquial conversation could be explained, not as a transgression of orational grammar, but as a set of structures and strategies, pragmatically based, constituted in the process of interaction. In order to test this hypothesis, it was essential to have a representative corpus of conversations, transcribed by means of a system capable of representing the conversational events which were the object of our study. The elaboration of a representative corpus was considered as a preliminary to the analysis. Two compilation volumes of this corpus have already been published (Briz, coord., 1995 and Briz y grupo Val.Es.Co., 2002), versions 2.0 and 2.1 of the web, and version 3.0, developed in 2021. The work carried out over these years has led to the creation of the following lines of work:
Characterising the colloquial register
On the one hand, through the analysis and explanation of the linguistic aspects and communicative strategy that generally identify this register of speech (Briz, 1996 and 1998, Ruiz Gurillo 2006) and, on the other hand, with the more specific description of various linguistic phenomena, such as word order (Padilla, 2001), intonation (Hidalgo, 1997, 2002 and 2019; Cabedo 2006 and 2007), the relations between prosody and (dis)politeness (Hidalgo 2009:; Hidalgo (2013; Hidalgo and Cabedo 2014) story sequences (Baixauli, 2000, Briz 2016), phraseology (Ruiz Gurillo, 1997 and 1998), connection (Pons, 1998; Estellés 2006; Montañez 2015; Hidalgo 2015), intensification and attenuation (Briz, 1998, 2007 and 2017; Albelda, 2004 and 2007, Briz and Albelda 2013; Albelda et al. 2014; Estellés and Cabedo, 2017-2018), linguistic borrowing (Gómez Capuz, 1998), the presence of slang (Sanmartín, 1998b), everyday metaphors (Sanmartín, 2000), direct style (Benavent, 2016), suspended structures and other syntactic issues (Hidalgo and Pérez Giménez, 2004; Pérez Giménez, 2015; Briz, 2018), humour (Ruiz Gurillo 2012, 2019), irony (Ruiz Gurillo and Padilla Coord. 2009), segmentation of conversation into its units of analysis (Grupo Val.Es.Co. 2014, Pons Coord. 2014), substructural elements (Pascual 2020), experimental validation of research on markers (Salameh 2021), research on approximatives (Pardo 2021), etc.
From the present and towards the future
At the moment, the almost thirty people who, in one way or another, collaborate in our group, are organised around the following lines of work:
- Val.Es.Co. Corpus 3.0
Version 3.0 of the Val.Es.Co. corpus adds to, and to some extent recasts, the previous versions. A new editing website has been built, a bijective correspondence has been established between the old transcription signs and the TEI tags that identify them, a new search system has been designed and, in addition, a reduced subcorpus, consisting of fifteen conversations, has been segmented into units and subunits following the theory of units developed by our group. It is thus demonstrated that the residue-free segmentation of colloquial conversation on the basis of pragmatic principles is possible (an answer, deferred in time, to the question posed by Antonio Narbona at the end of the seventies about "the syntax of spoken Spanish"). - Ameresco Corpus
The objectives and working methods of our team have been extended to other research groups through the AMERESCO project, which has collected similar corpora of Spanish spoken in different cities of the Hispanic domain. It currently comprises more than 50 conversations from Spain (Valencia and Las Palmas de Gran Canaria), Mexico (Monterrey, Mexico City and Querétaro), Argentina (Buenos Aires and Tucumán), Cuba (Havana and Santiago), Colombia (Barranquilla and Medellín), Chile (Iquique, Santiago) and Panama. The samples are representative of sociolect socio-cultural level, age and gender. - The Dictionary of Discursive Particles of Spanish (DPDE)
Markers and particles are described in this collective work, developed over more than fifteen years, in which the leading specialists in the field in the Hispanic domain have collaborated. Its new version, developed over the last two years, has added an editing website, converted the initial format into a database and added information on the position and discourse units in which all the dictionary's markers appear. In this way, a uniform description of the interrelationship between the positions and functions of all Spanish markers is provided in a new way. - Tecnolingüística, S.L.
This company, which was born as a spin-off of the group's research activity, is today a private entity that makes the transfer of the knowledge generated within the group its hallmark. With clients such as the RAE, the Ministry of Justice, different Spanish and foreign universities and some of the most prestigious Spanish law firms, our company demonstrates that it is possible to develop an economically profitable activity by offering the results of the research produced in the university departments as commercial services. This work of transferring research aims to promote, by example, other business initiatives of former students and to make visible in society the need for expert advice on linguistic issues. - The Val.Es.Co. model of conversational units
Since its first version in 2003, this model has been extended with new units, new positions and, above all, a large number of developments which demonstrate its explanatory capacity: studies on the correlation between the functions of discourse markers and the position/unit binomial, applications to its diachronic evolution, its cognitive basis, the combination of markers, the study of direct style or approximatives are some of its ramifications. - Studies on attenuation and evidentiality
Much of the group's efforts have been devoted to the characterisation and development of the pragmatic category attenuation, as well as to the study of evidentiality in Spanish. The projects Es.Var.Atenuación and Es.Vag.Atenuación are a good example of this. - Studies on the diachrony of the 20th century
The 20th century is the first synchronic slice for which spoken registers exist. Such registers constitute invaluable material for the diachronic study of spoken Spanish. This opens up a field of work, still in its infancy, which poses methodological challenges and theoretical considerations, most of which have yet to be explored. And, undoubtedly, this means adding a new perspective to the study of colloquial Spanish.
- Characterisation of the colloquial register
- Study of the structure of conversation and its units.
- Analysis of colloquial Spanish spoken in varieties of Spanish, both European and American Spanish.
- Labelling and aligning the corpus of colloquial Spanish spoken in Valencia
- Diachronic analysis of spoken Spanish
- Lexicographical analysis of Spanish discourse markers
- Study of syntactic, lexical, semantic and pragmatic phenomena of spoken Spanish
- Study on verbal politeness and image management
- Prosodic analysis of colloquial Spanish
- Spanish as a foreign language and ICT
Spoken language in ELE (Spanish as a foreign language): the oral-colloquial applied to the teaching of Spanish as a foreign and second language. Tools for the application and development of technology for the study of the spoken Spanish language.
- Colloquial Spanish (basics)
Study and characterisation of the colloquial register.
- Pragmatics, pragmatic strategies and grammaticalisation
Linguistic and paralinguistic mechanisms for expressing (dis)politeness in Spanish; delimitation of the concept of linguistic intensification and study of the linguistic mechanisms that make it up, and delimitation of the concepts of irony and humour as linguistic phenomena. History of Spanish language.
- Colloquial intonation and phonopragmatics
Colloquial intonation, phonopragmatics: Spanish prosody and its role in the functioning of the language.
- Forensic linguistics
Study of the relationship between language and law. Study of specialised language. Application of the scientific method of linguistics to help solve crimes.
- Lexical
Phraseological units and idiomatic expressions from the lexicon and the incorporation of newly created words into the Spanish lexicon.
- Corpus linguistics
Recording, transcription, elaboration, labelling and study of linguistic databases for the study of language.
- Analysis of tourism discourse
Analysis of the textual genres of tourism and its lexicon within the framework of the study of specialised languages. Application of the study to improve the writing of tourism texts and discursive interaction, develop an online dictionary and contribute to the proposals formulated within the framework of the teaching of Spanish for tourism.
- BRIZ GOMEZ, EMILIO ANTONIO
- PDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
- GONZALEZ GARCIA, VIRGINIA
- PDI-Prof. Permanent Laboral Ppl
- Responsables de Gestio Academica
- Coordinador/a Titulacio de Grau
- HIDALGO NAVARRO, ANTONIO
- PDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
- Secretari/a de Departament
- KOTWICA -, DOROTA MARIA
- Alumn.-Servei de Formacio Permanent
- PEREZ GIMENEZ, MONTSERRAT
- Alumn.-Servei de Formacio Permanent
- PONS BORDERIA, SALVADOR
- PDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
- Especialista Pau
- SANMARTIN SAEZ, JULIA
- PDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
- Coordinador/a Curs
Partners
María Estornell Pons - Universidad Católica de Valencia San Vicente Mártir
Xose A. Padilla García - Universitat d'Alacant
Leonor Ruiz Gurillo - Universitat d'Alacant
- ExpandirBRIZ GOMEZ, EMILIO ANTONIOPDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
- ExpandirGONZALEZ GARCIA, VIRGINIAPDI-Prof. Permanent Laboral PplResponsables de Gestio AcademicaCoordinador/a Titulacio de Grau
- ExpandirHIDALGO NAVARRO, ANTONIOPDI-Catedratic/a d'UniversitatSecretari/a de Departament
- ExpandirKOTWICA -, DOROTA MARIAAlumn.-Servei de Formacio Permanent
- ExpandirPEREZ GIMENEZ, MONTSERRATAlumn.-Servei de Formacio Permanent
- ExpandirSANMARTIN SAEZ, JULIAPDI-Catedratic/a d'UniversitatCoordinador/a Curs
Blasco Ibáñez Campus
Av. Blasco Ibáñez, 32
46010 València (Valencia)
- BRIZ GOMEZ, EMILIO ANTONIO
- PDI-Catedratic/a d'Universitat
