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Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century
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Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century

A special issue of Languages (ISSN 2226-471X).

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (7 February 2025) | Viewed by 1488

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Salvador Pons Bordería

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Guest Editor
Department of Spanish Philology, Universitat de València, Valencia, Spain
Interests: diachrony; grammaticalization; orality
Dr. Adrià Pardo Llibrer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Spanish Linguistics, Universidad de Salamanca, Salamanca, Spain
Interests: diachrony; grammaticalization; orality

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Historical linguistics has traditionally focused on linguistic change over the centuries, describing the different stages of the grammaticalization of a given form. Additionally, recent works have hypothesized linguistic changes within a relatively short period (Pons and Salameh, 2024). The motivation behind this Special Issue lies in the interest in linguistic change within the 20th century, given that this era allows witnessing changes with a higher degree of granularity (Pons, 2014).

Despite the proximity of this period to the present, various phenomena have taken place in the last century, such as the colloquialization of radio/television broadcasting (Salameh, 2023) or the addressing vocatives among older and younger generations (Pons and Llopis, 2020). These phenomena provide insights into pragmatic changes and offer additional information about how social and cultural innovations become reflected in the historical development of a language. The current state of the art in the literature has primarily addressed diachronic–pragmatic change in Spanish; accordingly, we aim to fill this gap by expanding this line of research to other languages. Topics include, but are not restricted to:

  • Pragmatic changes in discourse forms, such as conversational formulas, discourse markers, or formulation and text-structuring devices.
  • Changes in spoken registers among media and political discourse.
  • Changes in written texts (such as letters or journal articles).
  • Pragmatic variation among spoken and written genres.
  • Reflection of orality and colloquialization in social and institutional interaction.

We request that, prior to submitting a manuscript, interested authors initially submit a proposed title and an abstract of 400-600 words summarizing their intended contribution. Please send it to the Guest Editors (salvador.pons@uv.es; pardollibrer@usal.es). Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors for the purposes of ensuring proper fit within the scope of the Special Issue. Full manuscripts will undergo double-blind peer-review. 

Prof. Dr. Salvador Pons Bordería
Dr. Adrià Pardo Llibrer
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Languages is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • 20th-century diachrony
  • pragmatics
  • grammaticalization
  • constructionalization
  • colloquialization
  • orality and social interaction
  • media discourse

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Published Papers (3 papers)

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Research

33 pages, 654 KiB  
Article
Colloquialization Processes in the 20th Century: The Role of Discourse Markers in the Evolution of Sports Announcer Talk in Peninsular Spanish
by Shima Salameh Jiménez
Languages 2025, 10(7), 172; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070172 - 18 Jul 2025
Viewed by 215
Abstract
This paper analyzes 20th century colloquialization processes in Peninsular Spanish, in line with recent works addressing mass-media colloquialization. Previous studies suggest a change in sports-talk announcing towards a more informal model, which is supported by the incorporation of new linguistic features as well [...] Read more.
This paper analyzes 20th century colloquialization processes in Peninsular Spanish, in line with recent works addressing mass-media colloquialization. Previous studies suggest a change in sports-talk announcing towards a more informal model, which is supported by the incorporation of new linguistic features as well as by the influence of some external changes. In this context, this study delves into the role of discourse markers as a colloquialization parameter, as a growth in their employment has been detected since ca. 1990. To further explore the data, a manually compiled corpus has been transcribed and analyzed: our corpus consists of both radio and TV football-match recordings aired in Spain from 1980 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2024. These two big periods have been subdivided into five-year periods or micro-diachronies to allow for a more detailed analysis. Results reveal a consolidation of the use of discourse markers by sports announcers, contrasting with earlier broadcasts that tended to avoid them or that employed more formal discourse markers, typically related to written, planned discourses. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century)
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19 pages, 1271 KiB  
Article
Reformulation in Early 20th Century Substandard Italian
by Giulio Scivoletto
Languages 2025, 10(7), 165; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070165 - 3 Jul 2025
Viewed by 214
Abstract
This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, italiano popolare, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers: cioè, anzi [...] Read more.
This study investigates reformulation in a substandard variety of Italian, italiano popolare, from the early 20th Century, focusing on a collection of letters and postcards from semi-literate Sicilian peasants during World War I. The analysis identifies three reformulation markers: cioè, anzi, and vuol dire. These markers are affected by hypercorrection, interference, and structural simplification, reflecting the sociolinguistic dynamics of italiano popolare. Additionally, the study of these markers sheds light on the relationships between reformulation and related discourse functions, namely paraphrase, correction, addition, and motivation. By positioning occurrences of reformulation along a continuum between the spoken and written mode, the findings suggest that this discourse function is employed more as a rhetorical strategy that characterizes planned written texts, rather than as a feature of disfluency that is typical of unplanned speech. Ultimately, examining reformulation in italiano popolare provides valuable insights into the relationship between sociolinguistic variation and language change in the beginning of the 20th Century, a key phase in the spread of Italian as a national language. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century)
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36 pages, 7427 KiB  
Article
What Is Written(ness), and What Is Spoken(ness) in a Letter? The Oral–Scriptural Interface Throughout Greetings and Farewells in a Corpus of Spanish Civil War Soldiers’ Correspondence
by Adrià Pardo Llibrer
Languages 2025, 10(7), 162; https://doi.org/10.3390/languages10070162 - 29 Jun 2025
Viewed by 337
Abstract
This study examines around 350 handwritten letters from semiliterate soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, focusing on written orality and its interaction with scriptural conventions. The theoretical framework combines epistolography research (in which 20th-century popular correspondence reveals oral-like features) with studying the oral–scriptural [...] Read more.
This study examines around 350 handwritten letters from semiliterate soldiers during the Spanish Civil War, focusing on written orality and its interaction with scriptural conventions. The theoretical framework combines epistolography research (in which 20th-century popular correspondence reveals oral-like features) with studying the oral–scriptural interface. As detailed in the methodology, including the corpus compilation process, I present the selection criteria for the letters, which were segmented using the Val.Es.Co. model of discourse units. Segmentation facilitates my analysis, which addresses two aspects of the oral–scriptural interface: ritualized politeness in salutations and procedural devices that structure discursive moves. After summarizing the key findings, I discuss the hybrid nature of these letters, in which oral and written conventions intertwine. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Pragmatic Diachronic Study of the 20th Century)
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