Rafael Orozco

This study expands on previous analyses of the variable use of subject personal pronouns (SPPs) in Spanish and has a manifold purpose. I determine the pronominal rate in the New York Colombian speech community. I explore the linguistic and social constraints that affect the use of overt SPPs. I explain the impact of these forces and compare their effects with those on other populations.
The data was extracted from sociolinguistic interviews with a socially stratified group of residents of the New York City metropolitan area who lived permanently in Colombia until they immigrated to the United States. I conducted a series of statistical regression analyses to test nine linguistic and eight social constraints explored in previous studies of SPP usage (cf. Flores-Ferrán 2002, 2004, Orozco & Guy 2008, Otheguy & Zentella 2007). These constraints include discourse style, verb reflexivity, age, educational attainment, sex, and socioeconomic status.
The results offer a reliable point of comparison between SPP expression in Colombia and in NYC. They reveal a higher pronominal rate in New York, which appears to result from the simultaneous influence of contact with English and dialect leveling. The findings further indicate that overt SPPs are significantly affected by one external and six internal constraints including continuity of reference, TMA form of the verb, grammatical person and number of the subject, and speaker’s age. These constraints and their effects are, for the most part, the same that affect SPPs in Colombia prior to the inception of contact with English. They lend validity to Guy’s (2000) theory that the factors constraining language variation and change are consistent within different segments of a speech community. These findings provide an indication of how language and dialect contact simultaneously affect the Spanish of New York Colombians. They also help increase our understanding of the sociolinguistic forces constraining language variation in Spanish.