La intensificación en el español coloquial.

Abstract

This thesis aims to establish suitable theoretical criteria to characterize intensification through the inductive analysis of corpus of Spanish colloquial conversations (Val.Es.Co., 2002). Until now, intensification has been described from both semantic and stylistic point of view; however, neither are sufficient since it is a communicative fact. As such, the factors intervening in the enunciation must be considered when determining its role and its function. Therefore, it is necessary to resort to pragmatic explanations to provide a complete definition of intensification. In this study, intensification is regarded as a pragmatic category (Briz, 1998), one that relates linguistic forms with communicative units and is associated to a strategic activity. This research is divided into two parts: 1) an examination of the literature available and 2) a proposal of characterization of intensification from a pragmatic perspective. In the first part (chapters 2 and 3), earlier approaches to this phenomenon in the literature on the subject are reviewed and a classification of the intensification devices is provided as set forth by scholars. In chapter 4, the problems of earlier definitions of intensification are identified, their contributions highlighted and a theoretical and methodological framework is established so as to examine transversally a communicative category such as the pragmatic one. The proposed definition of intensification is developed in chapters 5, 6 and 7. Intensification is considered to be carried out in three language dimensions according to distinctive level of language: in terms of the code, scalarity; on the communicative level, evaluation and on the social plane, public face enhancement and valued politeness.