“Feel really Uruguayan”

Group unity, stance, respect and politeness. Forms of address in advertisements and commercial documents in the Spanish of Montevideo

Diane R. Uber | The College of Wooster

This chapter considers second-person singular forms of address (tú, vos, usted) in advertisements and business documents in the Spanish of Montevideo, Uruguay. Tú is considered the standard-Spanish familiar address and usted the standard respectful address, while vos is used as an familiar form of address among Uruguayans. Norms of politeness dictate that speakers should accommodate to the hearer using usted. However, familiar vos can indicate politeness for speakers with a similar social status, or to show solidarity. Using examples from marketing and advertising to illustrate usage, we find that over 70% of examples used vos, almost 19% employed usted, and less than 7% used tú. This supports claims that tuteo (whether verbal or pronominal) is disappearing from Montevideo.

Keywords: familiarity, forms of address, group unity, language of business and advertising, politeness, power, pronouns of address, respect, solidarity, stance, tú, usted, vos

Published online: 12 January 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/ihll.32.02ube

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