Use of personal pronouns as a sign of responsibility
Use of personal pronouns as a sign of responsibility
Social relationships and attitudes are also marked through pronominal choice. The manner in which pronouns are selected and distributed can be analyzed in order to understand the political and personal reasons that motivated this choice (Wilson 1990). The commitment and involvement of the speaker can be shown by way of the use of personal pronouns. According to Wilson (1990), pronominal selection varies in terms of context just as it does in terms of the individual. If a pronominal option exists in a given context, “any actual selection may be seen as carrying, po- tentially, an ideological loading within the framework of a specific presentation” (Wilson 1990: 61). For Wilson, the areas where different ideological manifestations reveal themselves by way of pronominal selection are the following:
1. self-reference (how the producer of the text presents him/herself);
2. relationships of contrast (how the pronominal system is used to compare and contrast to others);
3. reference to the Other (the use of pronouns to refer to individuals or groups that do not fulfill the role of producer or interpreter of the text).
The aspect of meaning that signals responsibility is agency (Hill & Irvine 1993). Linguistic resources are utilized in order to carry out the social practice of morally holding community members responsible for their actions. In addition to the lexi- co-grammar elements mentioned previously, linguistic markers of responsibility can be analyzed by looking at how the author selects to use the first person singular personal pronoun, I. The use of this pronoun in a confession can yield more information about the degree of responsibility the author of the confession is willing
What We Remember
to accept. Tróccoli uses the first person singular personal pronoun, I, to refer to himself when he makes affirmations for which he accepts total responsibility.
(26) I assume as an individual and as a product of a period. 35 (27) I accuse. 36
In Spanish, the presence of this pronoun, I (yo), is not required grammatically; its appearance is related with pragmatic and semantic factors. Studies about the appear- ance of the pronoun yo in spoken Spanish (Bentivoglio 1998; Silva-Corvalán 1977) have demonstrated that change of reference and type of verb class are the linguistic variables that contribute the most to the presence of the pronoun yo. In order to re- late the attribution of responsibility with the pronominal selection in this text an analysis was made of the type of verbs that appear together with the pronoun yo.
In Tróccoli’s confession, yo appears mostly with verbs that represent mental processes, in those that yo makes reference to an experiencer and not to an agent. The total appearances of the pronoun yo is very limited, it only appears 18 times in
a total of 200 clauses of high rank (yo appears once in an embedded clause and two times in a group complex with verbs conjugated in first person plural). The cases in which yo appears along with a change of reference do not represent an ideo- logical or personal motivation on the part of the confessor, rather they represent a pragmatic requirement. The confessor’s degree of personal involvement is hardly ever marked in this text with the use of personal pronouns (there are only 7/18 appearances of yo due to the author’s personal choice).
The use of personal pronouns in order to refer to the Others is also not sig- nificant. The Others are referred to indirectly through impersonal expressions or by their own names (real or fictitious). To distribute the load of responsibility the confessor uses the inclusive we and creates a third unidentified or fictitious person (Torquemada), in addition to a group of the Others.
Table 4. Use of the personal pronoun I [yo]
Material Mental Verbal Relational Existential Behavioral TOTAL
yo (total #) 5 10 1 1 0 1 18 yo (change of
3 5 2 1 0 0 11 reference)
Verbs conjugated in first person singular: 99 Uses of “yo”: 18 Uses of “yo” for changes of reference: 11
35. “Yo asumo como individuo y como producto de una época.” 36. “Yo acuso.”
Chapter 5. Individual memory