The

Ethnopragmatics of Rioplatense Spanish: Keywords and Cultural Scripts for the

language classroom
HDR Candidate: Eric Jan Hein
Principal Supervisor: Cliff Goddard
Associate Supervisor: Susana Eisenchlas
SUMMARY

I will (1) investigate the links between (a) Rioplatense Spanish speech practices and (b) tacit norms and values
widely held in Latin America. Based on (1), I will (2) develop pedagogical material that assists language
students in gaining a culture-internal perspective on culturally-motivated aspects of the Spanish model of
conversational interaction which present challenges for them. To attain (1) and (2), I will use the Natural
Semantic Metalanguage approach, which captures culture-specific speech practices and other cultural
phenomena using simple, non-ethnocentric, cross-translatable terms. My project is a contribution to
ethnopragmatics, and meets the need to develop interculturally competent language students.
Words: 100 of 100

INTRODUCTION

My project has a double purpose: (a) to undertake an ethnopragmatic analysis of Rioplatense

Spanish (i.e. Buenos Aires´ Spanish) keywords, speech practices, values and attitudes, using the Natural
Semantic Metalanguage framework [34; 35; 36; 39; 52; 53; 64], and (b) on the basis of this analysis, to
develop pedagogical material that can integrate intercultural communicative competence in foreign
language instruction.
The term ethnopragmatics designates an approach to language in use that sees culture as playing a
central explanatory role, and which opens the way for links to be drawn between language and other
culture phenomena [40: p. 66]. In language teaching, the concept intercultural communicative
competence focuses on the idea that to successfully communicate in a foreign language does not only
involve a purely linguistic ability (e.g. correct use of grammar rules), but also an ability to interact with
others who are culturally different from oneself, based on an understanding of the norms and values
held in their community and encoded through their everyday speech practices [4; 5; 50; 56].
With increased globalization and migration there has been a growing recognition for the need for an
intercultural focus in language education [50]. Influential documents issued as guidelines to language
teachers, such as the USA´s ”Standards in Foreign Language Learning” [1] and Europe´s CEFR [8], are
firmly based in a sociocultural approach to language teaching which emphasizes intercultural
competence as an important goal for language learners [48]. In Australian higher education language
programs, and particularly at the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science at Griffith
University, the importance of integrating a critical “languaculture dimension” within the curricula is also
being increasingly recognized [10].
Despite the widespread agreement about the need to develop interculturally competent language
students, there exists a serious gap between institutional guidelines and theory on the one hand and
practice on the other [3: p. 124; 10; 11; 14; 45]. An obstacle here is the lack of pedagogical material
designed for that purpose [7; 14: p. 32; 15]. The development of such material will constitute a step
forward in bridging this gap in the field of language education.

RELEVANCE

Spanish is the main language of communication in 21 countries and is 2nd by number of native
speakers in the world [43]. Because of the importance Spanish has today in international, political,
economic and cultural contexts, my project will focus on that language (which, I should add, is my
mother tongue), but the insights it aims to produce will have import for foreign language teaching at
large. Furthermore, the ethnopragmatic investigation I will undertake is valuable in and of itself, in that
it will unlock the relationship between (a) everyday Spanish language and (b) tacit norms and values
widely held in Spanish-speaking societies. In broader perspective, this project is a contribution to the
field of intercultural communication, which stresses the need for intercultural dialogue in today´s
increasingly diverse and interconnected world.

THEORY AND METHODS

My project´s theoretical frame is the ethnopragmatic paradigm, the objective of which is to produce,
from a culture-internal perspective, understandings of the “how and why” of discourse practices in the
diverse languages of the world [40]. To attain this, ethnopragmatics uses the Natural Semantic
Metalanguage (NSM) approach originated by the Australian semanticists Anna Wierzbicka (ANU), Cliff
Goddard (Griffith University) and colleagues [28; 30; 34; 35; 36; 52; 53; 61; 64]. This approach employs
a small core of 65 basic, culturally-shared, intuitively self-explanatory meanings—known as semantic
primes—as its vocabulary of semantic and pragmatic description across languages and cultures [33: p.
3]. Based on decades of cross-linguistic semantic research, semantic primes are hypothesized to have
concrete linguistic exponents (i.e. words or other linguistic expressions) in all natural languages. They
can also be combined, according to grammatical patterns which also appear to be universal, to form
simple phrases and sentences. Semantic primes and their grammatical frames (and certain complex
units called semantic molecules) make up the NSM, a cross-translatable “mini-language” which works
as a tool for linguistic and cultural analysis [31; 33: p. 3]. Using simple terms that can be understood by
cultural outsiders, one can represent from an insider´s point of view the meanings of complex and
culture-specific words, grammatical constructions and other speech practices found in any language [33;
38]. This technique is called semantic explication [31: p. 461], and its application for analysing cultural
keywords [60; 62; 63] has particular importance in ethnopragmatics. Cultural keywords are highly
salient, culture-rich and translation-resistant words that occupy focal points in cultural ways of
thinking, acting, feeling and speaking [40: p. 71]. NSM is also used to capture the meaning of beliefs,
values, attitudes, aspects of interpersonal style, norms and other practices widely held in a given
culture. This technique is called cultural script [29; 40: pp. 71-72].
The NSM approach has made considerable progress in its attempt to avoid the problem of
terminological ethnocentrism so common in cultural studies and universalist pragmatics: the imposition
of an inaccurate outsider perspective by using complex, culture-specific terms of one language/culture
to describe the meanings and values of another language/culture. Furthermore, because they are easily
translatable to any language and accessible to language learners, scripts and explications can be readily
adapted as “pedagogical scripts” to develop the intercultural competence component in language
teaching [16; 29: pp. 156-157; 32: p. 114; 37: pp. 159-162; 40: p. 80; 46: pp. 192-196].

ETHNOPRAGMATICS OF SPANISH

Travis´ ethnopragmatic studies on Colombian Spanish have shown how the everyday use of
diminutives, terms of endearment, discourse markers and certain cultural keywords (such as
“confianza”, “calor humano”, and “vínculos”1) realize a cultural model of conversational interaction
widely held in Colombia where high value is placed on displaying affection for others and on affirming
the tie that exists in relationships [57; 58; 59]. In accordance with ethnographic and linguistic-
anthropological studies [12; 18; 19; 20; 21; 41; 42; 54; 55], Travis suggests that “much of what is
presented [in this model] also applies to other Latin American countries, as well as to other Latin
countries, such as Spain” [59: p. 201], and the same stance is supported in Osmann´s study showing how
the keyword “calor humano” is fundamental to interpersonal interaction throughout the Spanish-
speaking world [51].
In line with these studies, my working hypothesis is that there are both (a) high-level “master
scripts” [37: pp. 157-158] which function as a shared interpretative background in conversational
interaction across Latin American Spanish-speaking societies, and (b) low-level, culture-specific scripts
for interaction, linked with the particular political, cultural and migratory histories of each society.
Focusing on the Rioplatense dialect of Buenos Aires (Argentina), the task I propose is to track down and
produce an ethnopragmatic description of the linguistic forms and practices through which the
Porteños (Buenos Aires inhabitants) either realize or diverge from that shared model of everyday
conversation.
The divergence of Rioplatense speech practices is strongly linked with the exceptional
language/culture contact situation that took place in Buenos Aires from the end of the 19th century

1
The English terms “trust”, “human warmth”, and “bonds” (loosely) capture their meanings.

until the first decades of the 20th century, where great European—particularly Italian—immigration
waves drastically modified the sociolinguistic landscape of the area. The effects of this contact are to
be found not only in the lexicon, intonation, and phonetics specific of today´s Rioplatense Spanish [13;
22; 23; 24; 25; 26; 27; 44], but also in deeply rooted cultural scripts that guide Porteños´ ways of
thinking and speaking [2; 6; 49]. A contrastive perspective with other Spanish dialects will therefore be
of paramount importance.
In line with the ethnopragmatic paradigm, my approach will place particular importance on linguistic
evidence I will gather through:
v Corpus del Español (100 million words, to be expanded to 2 billion, including texts from the
2010s, allowing comparison of spoken variations across Spanish-speaking countries) [9]
v Language/culture consultants
v Semantic consultation sessions [39; 47] to be carried out in Buenos Aires with groups of
native Spanish speakers

PEDAGOGICAL MATERIAL

The material will be designed for students studying Spanish at the Bachelor of Language and
Linguistics at Griffith University. The aim is to assist them in gaining a culture-internal perspective on
culturally-motivated aspects which are central in the Spanish model of conversational interaction but
are different in their home culture, and thus present special challenges for them. Explicit instruction
using scripts and explications should help them gain proficiency in those aspects, and also become
aware of differences and similarities between their own cultural model and that of the target language.
Based on (a) a survey administered to Bachelor students of Spanish where they report on their
experiences of everyday conversation during their study-abroad semester in Spanish-speaking countries
[17], and (b) personal communication with Spanish teachers at higher education and international
specialists in foreign language acquisition, I have made a provisional list of those aspects:
v Complex greeting/leave-taking routines
v Conversational management strategies (e.g. preferences for overlap, latching and high-
involvement; turn-taking patterns; back-channelling; conversation closers)
v Interpersonal expressiveness: in prosody, high frequency interjections, intensifiers,
superlative suffix, diminutives, expressions of warm praise, and compliments
v Terms of address: terms of endearment, hypocoristics, vocatives, quasi-kin terms, various
2.p.s. pronouns
v Colloquial language and slang

The material will be elaborated in line with pedagogical guidelines that can be found in the
ethnopragmatic and NSM bibliography. It will be tried out in a pedagogical intervention with the
students and assessed through a pretest-posttest study.

TIMEPLAN
Semester
TASK
1 2 3 4 5 6
Reading stage
Data Consultation + Corpus study
Ethnopragmatic gathering Fieldwork in Buenos Aires
research
Analysis using NSM
Design of pedagogical material & intervention
Pedagogical intervention
Assessment of material & intervention
Dissertation

Over the period of my candidature, I also have the intention to publish journal articles, to present at
conferences—e.g. Australian Linguistics Society Annual Conference, to be held at Monash University,
December 7-9 2016—and to participate in the NSM semantic workshops held every year at ANU.

Eric Jan Hein

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