The discourse origins of the proceduralized mitigators tipo, onda, corte and rollo: A micro-diachronic exploration

Abstract

In the last few years there has been a growing interest in exploring recent changes emerging in relatively short periods, with a focus on pragmatic markers. Despite the greater amount of data available compared to earlier times, the diachronic study of recent phenomena in the field of colloquial oral language is challenging. The availability of colloquial oral data is very limited, as systematic data collection begins in the 1990s. The aim of this contribution is to find out how to take advantage of corpus data from the 20th (and 19th) century before the emergence of oral data and which registers can provide relevant observations. The present analysis (with a strong methodological focus) is devoted to a series of mitigation markers of Spanish, i.e. tipo and the diatopically more restricted markers rollo, onda and corte which went through a recent proceduralization process. On the basis of diachronic corpora (CDH and CORPES) we will analyze the original constructions and their roots in certain registers, trying to show the transition towards colloquial language, with the aim of contributing to an elaborated methodology for the study of microdiachrony.