Silencio, género e identidad: actitudes de los jóvenes españoles ante los actos silenciosos en la conversación

Abstract

Sociolinguistics considered that the language attitudes have a crucial role in the use of language and provide insight into social identities of those who make them. However, they are still insufficient studies measuring perceptions of speakers with regard to the nonverbal phenomena of interaction. Silence has been interpreted among some groups of young Spanish as a common resource in their communicative exchanges with other young friends, because (1) it socially identifies them, (2) it allows them to create complicities and closer ties with members of their group and (3) it distinguishes them from other groups. In this study, we have tried to obtain sociopragmatic information (about what young people consider socially valid according to their beliefs and world view) and pragmalinguistic information (about how they think they use silence in their daily encounters) through a test of social habits distributed to 100 Spanish university students (50 women and 50 men) from various sources.