Subjectivity in Spanish Discourse: Explicit and Implicit Causal Relations in Different Text Types

Abstract

Corpus-based studies in various languages have demonstrated that some connectives are used preferentially to express subjective versus objective meanings, for example, omdat vs. want in Dutch. However, Spanish connectives have been understudied from this perspective. Moreover, most of the studies of subjectivity have focused on explicit relations and little is known about the subjectivity of implicit coherence relations. In addition, the role that text type plays in the meaning and use of causal relations and their connectives is still under discussion. This study aims to analyze the local contexts of Spanish causal explicit and implicit relations in different text types by carrying out manual analyses of subjectivity. 360 relations marked by three prototypical causal connectives and 120 implicit relations were extracted from academic and journalistic texts. The analytical model applied is based on an integrative approach to subjectivity. Statistical analyses indicate a particular behavior of Spanish connectives and implicit relations and a three-way interaction between subjectivity, text type, and linguistic marking in journalistic texts. Therefore, this study reveals new insights into subjectivity in Spanish discourse.