'Tú is what the other person does': The pragmatic divide between intention and interpretation in personal address

Personal address is a pervasive index of identities, relationships and culture that is of enduring interest to pragmatics research and theory (see Clyne, Norrby & Warren, 2009; Hughson, 2009, for recent work). Sociolinguistic models of personal address proceed from a correlational perspective, in which choices among alternative address terms are centered on variation between the formal (V) and informal (T) second person pronouns. Research in this tradition presumes relatively direct connections between specifiable situational variables, such as relative age, familiarity, and sex, and address term choices. By contrast, the cultural perspective proceeds from the assumption that personal address reveals a unique system of norms and premises relevant to personhood and relationships that underlies the social structure in which that system is enacted. This presentation builds from a cultural perspective founded on Hymes’ (1962, 1972) conceptualization of speech communities and valued ways of speaking, developed further in speech codes theory (Philipsen, 1992, 1997; Philipsen et. al, 2005). Specifically, I take the discursive force position – that cultural norms are connected to action by way of predictions and explanations of talk about norm-governed behavior – as the basis for exploring differentiation of intentions from interpretations of personal address. I draw from previously published ethnographic fieldwork conducted in Colombia, as well as more recent data, to illustrate five possibilities for interpretation and evaluation of personal address behavior that diverges from expectation: ignorance, incompetence, innovation, transgression and resistance.