Addressing and Addressing Formulae in Spanish Spoken in Equatorial Guinea. A Study Based on Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel’s Work

Abstract

Addressing and its formulae show a highly complex configuration and distribution throughout the Spanish-speaking landscape as a whole. However, as usual in Spanish language linguistics studies, works addressing this issue are commonly limited to Peninsular and Hispanic American Spanish. This paper examines the issue of addressing formulae at another specific featured place —Equatorial Guinea, the only Spanish-speaking country in sub-Saharan Africa. In order to do that, this reflection is based on a multiple corpus, a short story, and two novels by Guinean author Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel, following an inductive methodological approach. This intends to highlight the layout crossing situating Equatorial Guinea Spanish language outside of the voseo-using Hispanofonía on the one hand, and undecided between the objective and systematic distribution between tuteo and ustedeo (I, you), as seen in Spain, on the other hand. As the main hypothesis, we put forward the non-existence, in native local languages, of a personal pronoun (second person, with a corresponding verbal form) to match the Peninsular usted form. This is an interferential reflection of proxemic relations between local languages and cultures that is observed in Spanish language in African lands.