Sociolinguistic study of the mitigating devices used in semi-structured interviews in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria

Abstract

This article provides a detailed account of the mitigation functions and devices used in 18 semi-structured interviews included in the PRESEEA-Las Palmas corpus. The data are addressed both in a general way and with regard to the social variables that have been considered in the research (educational level, age and gender), and also in relation to the outcomes found in other speech communities where mitigation studies have been carried out within the PRESEEA project. With regard to the functions and types of mitigation, the results allow us to speak of a similarity between the data from Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and Santiago de Chile, compared to other speech communities such as Valencia and Madrid (Vallecas). On the other hand, our outcomes show a profile of a change from below consisting in the spread of the mitigation of the dictum, less frequent among subjects with a high level of education, in the speech community under study. Gender analysis offers few but clear differences between men and women.