Linguistic Commentary - Essay Example

As Professor Christopher John Poutain (2005) explains it, there can be three types of linguistic acceptable variations: "Acceptability may vary with a number of factors, including place (DIATOPIC variation), social group (DIASTRATIC variation) or time (DIACHRONIC variation)." In the present case, we have a diastratic variation as the boss represents a social group a lot different from the workers' group. We can see that their Spanish is quite different even though they seem to understand each other very well.

As we know, the concept of linguistic competence means in pragmatic terms that there is no register better than others as long as communication is established among them. In this fragment we can note a great difference between the boss' Spanish and the workers' Spanish. Spanish is a language of constant changes as Professor John M. Lipski (n. d.) stated in one of his papers: "Spanish -a language spoken on every continent- is the product not only of its Peninsular heritage and of internal evolution, but also of a variety of language contacts, with indigenous languages, languages of forced immigration (the slave trade), and of voluntary immigration.

" The present fragment is a good example of the many changes that Spanish has experienced along the years. Another distinctive feature of this fragment is the vocalization and th. The boss also uses some of this broken Spanish words when he changes his register. An interesting feature is the pejorative language used by the administrator: "rotos de michica" (l. 7), "fuerino sinvergenza" (l. 17), "sinvergenzas" (l. 18). As he is mad, he uses this kind of language as a way of getting even on the workers.

On the other hand, the use of colons speeds up the narrative in lines 25, 26 and 27. The narrator is omniscient. It is narrated in the third person singular. The register of the narrator's speech is standard Spanish. In lines 20 and 21 the narration is very agile: "como un mvil punto obscuro que alejndose se empequeeca". It is also very graphic as we can see the little dot getting smaller with the precise wording of the narrator. This fragment has two distinct parts: one narrative part and one dialogues part.

The narration is very concise and explanatory as it gives interesting details of the motives behind the dialogues. It is also very descriptive, especially when it says in lines 12-14 the following: "hablaba ahora a Segundo, que entontecido por su mirada roja de ira, con movimiento de pndulo mova acompasadamente el cuerpo." In these lines we can see the use of a very appropriate metaphor: "pendulum's movement", when referring to the oscillating movement of Segundo's body. The narrator also makes emphasis on the wrath of the administrator.

He says that his "glance was red by the wrath" (l. 13), and this image is very graphic and quite appropriate to describe the mood of the boss. But it is relevant to note that there is a change in the color of his glance due to the same wrath. In line 13 it is red,