One pronoun, many social meanings: How people talk about "voseo" on social media
What is it about?
This journal article explores how Spanish speakers across 21 different countries talk about and evaluate the second person singular pronoun “voseo” (a way of addressing someone as "you") on social media, revealing how attitudes towards language use vary by region and are shaped by long-standing social stigma towards particular groups of speakers.
Why is it important?
This study is the first language attitude study of voseo to use large-scale social media data, allowing direct comparison of how speakers from many countries evaluate the same pronoun in a shared online space. By drawing comments together from across distinctive regions, the study shows how a grammatical address form (second person singular pronoun, i.e., "you") can take on vastly different social meanings—ranging from an expression of regional pride (e.g., Argentina) to stigma (e.g., Chile)—depending on the commenter's place identity. This approach reveals patterns of language attitude judgments that are difficult to capture through surveys or interviews alone and highlights how social media has become a key site where language norms are both produced and contested.