This publication is a Spanish-language book version of the PhD thesis modificaciones léxicas fonológicamente motivadas en el Área Metropolitana de Guadalajara (México): Un estudio pragmático-lingüístico (Phonologically Motivated Lexical Modifications in the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara (Mexico): A Pragmatic-Linguistic Study). The thesis, supervised by Prof. Dr. Barbara Frank-Job at the Universität Bielefeld in Germany and published in Spanish in 2024, is paradoxically the first study, to my and the author's knowledge, that looks at a common phenomenon in colloquial Mexican Spanish, namely the replacement of lexical items by others with identical initial phonemes but completely different meanings. The study uses a qualitative pragmatic-linguistic approach to investigate exactly which factors motivate the use of these modifications, instead of the “original” lexical items, in a large corpus of spoken Mexican Spanish, paying particular attention to sociolinguistic and especially pragmatic functions of the phenomenon. The author refers to this phenomenon as “phonologically motivated lexical modifications” (modificaciones léxicas fonológicamente motivadas) and frequently uses the abbreviation moléfomos throughout the text.
The monograph is structured into 8 chapters, preceded by a short (1-page) acknowledgments section (original title: agradecimientos ) and followed by a bibliography and annex. The 8 chapters are numbered from 0 to 7 and have the following original titles: introducción (Introduction), delimitación geográfica (Geographic Delimitation), fenómenos de alteración fonética en el habla románica relacionados (Related Phonetic Alteration Phenomena in Spoken Romance Languages), estado actual de la investigación (Review of the Current Literature), en torno a un fenómeno lingüístico (Regarding a Linguistic Phenomenon), metodología y marco teórico (Methodology and Theoretical Framework), análisis de los datos (Data Analysis), consideraciones finales (Final Considerations). The length of the bibliography (8 pages) is normal for a PhD Thesis on an understudied phenomenon, whereas the annex section, comprised of 3 parts, comprises almost as much space as the previous contents of the book. The first annex is a glossary of regional expressions, designed to help any Spanish-speaking reader who has not lived in or around Guadalajara to understand the transcribed examples. The second annex is a list of interviews, including the ID-number, length, date of recording, place of recording, names of interlocutors, and “transcription” for each interview. The category, “transcription”, referred to how much, if any, of the interview transcription was provided in the third annex. This annex, which was by far the longest, contained long excerpts from some interviews in the corpus for the reader’s reference. Having explained the content of the bibliography and annexes, in the subsequent sections, I will summarize, in detail, the contents of each chapter of the volume.
The book opens with the affirmation that speakers use language not only to convey thoughts and emotions but also to define their mutual relationship, social group affiliation, and the nature of the ongoing speech act. Building on this insight, the author introduces a phenomenon characteristic of Mexican Spanish, a variety with many other unique linguistic characteristics, that is deeply tied to such pragmatic functions. The phenomenon in question entails an original word or phrase being replaced or expanded by a longer expression that shares its initial sound but not its semantic content. These expressions, which the author calls “phonologically motivated lexical modifications” (or moléfomos), often involve changes in morphology, are typically longer than the base form, and may be either well-established or coined ad hoc. Although this phenomenon is not exclusive to Mexican Spanish, appearing in other Spanish varieties and European languages (i.e., son of a biscuit for son of a bitch in English), what is notable about Mexican Spanish is the relatively high frequency of these expressions (Lope Blanch, 1980). Despite their pervasiveness, moléfomos have not yet been clearly conceptualized within a coherent theoretical framework, nor is there a consistently used label for them. For the author, this gap prompts a central question: why would speakers choose to use such long and seemingly complex replacements? The author proposes that the answer lies in pragmatics, specifically, in the understanding that language serves social and interactional purposes beyond mere information transfer. The aim of the book is therefore to explore and preliminarily describe the functions of phonologically motivated lexical modifications, proposing the central hypothesis that, in contexts of communicative immediacy, these modifications serve multiple pragmatic functions, closely tied to the specific circumstances and communicative purposes of the interaction. The study is described as empirical and qualitative, grounded in a substantial corpus of spontaneous conversations recorded by the author throughout the larger metropolitan area of Guadalajara, Mexico. Given the lack of prior research on moléfomos, the author adopts a mixed-methods approach and draws from a range of theoretical perspectives. The analysis is, however, frequently guided by the notion of contextualization (Auer & Di Luzio, 1992), a term that encompasses all the activities participants engage in to create and modify the context in which an utterance is to be understood. Within this framework, the author argues that phonologically motivated lexical modifications function as contextualization cues. She then explains her aim, through detailed pragmatic-linguistic analyses, to determine which contexts are created by these forms and inferred between speakers through the use of these forms. The introduction concludes with an outline of the book’s remaining structure.
In this short chapter, the author justifies the focus on Mexico by noting that, out of approximately 493 million native Spanish speakers worldwide, nearly 125 million speak Mexican Spanish. While phonologically motivated lexical modifications are not exclusive to the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara, the author selected this region as a representative area of Mexican Spanish due to its high population (over 5 million inhabitants), its geographic location in the center of the state of Jalisco, encompassing Guadalajara and the surrounding municipalities, and its location near the geographical center of the country.
The stated aim of this chapter is to clarify the similarities and differences between moléfomos and other related phonological phenomena in Romance languages by examining their characteristics. The first phenomenon analyzed is vesre, involving the inversion of syllables in a word, placing the final syllable first, the penultimate second, and so forth (i.e, zabeca for cabeza ‘head’), followed by rosarigasino, in which “gas” is added immediately after the stressed vowel and the vowel is repeated (i.e., colectivo ‘collective’ becomes colectigasivo). A third phenomenon, jerigonza, involves the systematic insertion of syllables into existing words, either a syllable containing p with the preceding vowel inserted after each syllable (i.e., gapatopo for gato ‘cat’), or the syllable chi at the beginning of each syllable instead (i.e., chigachito for gato). The chapter subsequently discusses verlan, which involves segmenting a French word into syllables, inverting their order, and then reapplying French prosodic rules. For example, femme [famə] ‘woman’ is inverted to [məfa] and then becomes [moef]. In the last phenomenon, louchébem, the initial consonant of a word is replaced with l-, the original consonant is moved to the end of the word, and a suffix, usually -em, is added (i.e., louletpèm for poulet ‘chicken’). Like moléfomos, these 5 phonological phenomena are all historically rooted, many originated as forms of secret or coded language, and they are employed in a largely spontaneous, playful, and entertaining manner. However, these other phonological phenomena often diminish or soften vulgar expressions, alter the meaning of a word, or otherwise obscure and conceal information, whereas moléfomos tend to do the opposite. Furthermore, the other phenomena are limited to particular time periods, regions, generations, and/or social groups, whereas moléfomos are employed by a broad spectrum of speakers and remain widely used in Mexico contemporarily.
Chapter 3 presents a chronological overview of the limited body of linguistic work on moléfomos, drawing not only on academic sources but also on catalogues and artistic works, such as essays, that mention the phenomenon. This broader inclusion is justified by the scarcity of formal studies, and the review remains confined to sources in Spanish. Various references from popular sources are presented, from 1627 until the 1960s, that briefly commented on moléfomos. The first linguist referenced was the prominent dialectologist and expert on Mexican Spanish, Lope Blanch (1980), who interpreted moléfomos as a form of morphological creativity involving lexical lengthening, where parts of a lexical item are deleted and replaced with a longer suffix. While acknowledging that this phenomenon was not unique to Mexican Spanish, he emphasized its particular prevalence in that variety. Using detailed linguistic terminology, he characterized moléfomos, despite the absence of empirical data, as a type of lexicographical recreation used across social classes that typically occurs in festive contexts among family and friends. He also highlighted its euphemistic and playful functions. Subsequent references to moléfomos were once again less extensive and largely confined to non-linguistic sources. However, Sánchez Corrales and Ramírez Vásquez (2008) included moléfomos in a sociolinguistic study of university youth slang in Costa Rica, although the expressions cited were inaccurately categorized as invented words. Pérez García and García González (2010) identified the phenomenon in a study conducted in Cuba, but the research was limited to 8 participants and relied on impressionistic analysis. The author then discusses her own earlier work: Drees (2011), a master’s thesis based on questionnaires completed by 50 male and 50 female informants, finding that moléfomos occurred only in relaxed communicative situations, yet showing, in contrast to Lope Blanch (1980), that moléfomos were not a morphological phenomenon. However, the term used in this thesis, phonological creativism, is explicitly abandoned in the present work. Boyer’s (2013) master’s thesis on moléfomos refers to them instead as “phonic games” and attempts to classify them into subtypes. In this study, Boyer claimed that young adults were particularly prone to using moléfomos, attributing to them functions such as playfulness, identity marking, and concealment. According to the author, this last study is the only one to investigate the pragmatic functions of moléfomos specifically, touching on pragmatics and offering some relevant insights, yet also suffering from methodological limitations. Notably, snowball sampling was used to create a highly homogeneous and non-representative group, and empirical support was lacking for the concluded uses of moléfomos. Furthermore, none of the research done before Boyer (2013) drew on spoken corpus data, relying instead either on introspection, written sources, or small samples of spoken speech. In contrast, the present study seeks to address this gap through an empirical analysis based on a larger, more representative sample of spontaneous spoken language.
The chapter’s primary aim is to critically review the various terms that have previously been used to classify such expressions and ultimately defend the author’s proposed term, moléfomos. The author begins by discussing paronomasia and festive semantic derivation, 2 terms that fail to adequately capture the phenomenon as it appears in Mexican Spanish. Lope Blanch (1980) employed several different terms, but none are deemed satisfactory. For instance, formal derivation is inappropriate because the process does not involve the standard morphological creation of new words through affixation. Terms such as recreation, enlargement, and formal lengthening are also too narrow to encompass the full range of cases observed. Other authors have proposed labels such as semantic creation, lexical creation, or phonological creativism, but these, through the root “create”, imply the invention of entirely new forms, whereas many moléfomos are based on preexisting expressions. Given these limitations in prior terminology, the author argues that the newly introduced term moléfomos is justified, as it captures the full range of the phenomenon without relying on inaccurate interpretations.
The chapter begins with the theoretical foundation of the concept of contextualization as developed by Gumperz and Auer, emphasizing that speakers interpret utterances based on familiar and identifiable schemas (Gumperz 1982). Contextualization involves both empirical linguistic data and contextualization cues, which are linked to the speaker’s past experiences and provide schemas for them to draw on (Auer, 1986). The author justifies her use of ethnography of communication and interactional sociolinguistics to analyze how interlocutors construct context in real time (Gumperz 1982). This framework is used to explore changes in social identities and relationships, the formation and transformation of norms, and the ways societies attribute value to communicative forms. To this end, the author aims to analyze complete sequences of speech rather than isolated phrases, defining discourse as a social practice that is both shaped by and constitutive of social life, where speakers select linguistic forms based on sociocultural and cognitive parameters (Calsamiglia Blancafort / Tusón Valls 2001). The author then justifies her decisions to make her own recordings and explains that she found participants both in Germany and during fieldwork in the Guadalajara area. The data consist of prototypical colloquial conversations, defined, in accordance with Briz Gómez (2011), as informal, unprepared conversations between equals that are relaxed in tone and focused on everyday themes. The author notes the importance of gaining trust while collecting data and that participants needed to currently reside or have lived in the area for at least 3 years. The participant group consisted of 12 men and 9 women, aged 3 to 75, varying in social class. 12 participants had completed only basic education (up to the end of middle school), 4 had completed middle-high education (up to the end of high school), and 5 were college-educated. The chapter includes a table summarizing this information. Participants were not informed of the study’s purpose so as not to affect the frequency and functions of moléfomos in the data. 3 participants lived in Germany and 2 in the United States, whereas the rest lived in Mexico. 7 speakers were recorded via Skype in June 2013, yielding 174 minutes of data, and 21 were recorded during fieldwork from August to September of the same year, yielding 3,662 minutes of recorded data in total. The corpus was reviewed using Audacity to locate moléfomos; no difference in frequency was found between Skype and face-to-face conversations. Only the excerpts used for qualitative analysis were transcribed. Participants were anonymized, and written consent was obtained, including consent for being recorded without knowing the exact moment of recording. Basic transcriptions followed the GAT 2 conventions commonly used in Germany and were adapted for readability by non-experts, using consistent Spanish orthography. The chapter then provides a theoretical overview of the concepts applied in the data analysis, beginning with a summary of Coseriu’s (1980) distinction between functional language, a system of oppositions and realizations, and historical language, a cultural product recognized as a language, encompassing many functional systems. She introduces 3 types of variation in any language: diatopic (geographic), diastratic (social), and diaphasic (situational), considering moléfomos to be diaphasic. Next, the author introduces Koch and Oesterreicher’s (2007) model of spoken and written speech and the distinctions between them, showing that moléfomos are used in contexts meeting the parameters for communicative immediacy. She then briefly presents Briz Gómez’s (2011) work on colloquial speech, characterized as interactive, informal, spontaneous, oral, focused on everyday topics, marked by speaker proximity and equality, and thematically non-specialized. The author then introduces Austin’s and Searle’s speech act theory, its key distinctions (i.e., constative versus performative speech acts), and the concept of illocutionary force to explore how the latter might be altered by moléfomos. Subsequently, Briz Gómez’s (2011) definition of politeness as a form of negotiation governed by rules designed to ensure smooth and tension-free interaction is presented, along with Leech’s (1983) and Brown and Levinson’s (1987) work on relative, absolute, positive, and negative politeness as well as face-saving strategies. Following this, the author introduces attenuation, a pragmatic category that minimizes illocutionary force and mitigates interaction between participants, for which existing frameworks (i.e., Briz Gómez (2011)) are lacking in detail for this study. As such, she proposes the complementary concepts of mitigation and gradation. In mitigation, the speaker modifies the illocutionary force of an utterance anticipated to have negative consequences for the hearer (for either self-serving or altruistic reasons), whereas in gradation, the strength of a speech act is reduced without necessarily reducing its illocutionary force.
This chapter, by far the longest in the book, begins by reminding the reader where this chapter is situated within the larger book and then proceeds to present extensive findings from the application of the theoretical concepts introduced in Chapter 5 to the collected corpus. Excerpts from the corpus, some of which are pages long, are provided throughout the chapter to support and clarify the analysis, and both linguistic and context cues from these excerpts are explicitly mentioned in the discussion to justify the author’s determinations that specific examples of moléfomos perform specific functions. It is noted that moléfomos occur exclusively in situations of communicative immediacy and fulfill a variety of functions, ranging from structuring discourse to discursive and pragmatic functions. Despite the high frequency of certain examples, such as Simón for sí (yes), moléfomos do not appear to be grammaticalizing, lexicalizing, or pragmatizing. The author then explains that within the overarching category of communicative immediacy, various pragmatic subfunctions of moléfomos can be identified. She reminds the reader of the parameters for communicative immediacy as defined by Koch and Oesterreicher (2007) before presenting the observed functions of moléfomos . The first observed function of moléfomos is emblematic, while using these moléfomos the speaker reconstructs the context of past situations of communicative immediacy in which the interlocutor was not present. 2 examples of discourse containing moléfomos are shown to illustrate this function, and in each case, the only moléfomo used is Simón. The author then turns to the subfunctions of attenuation, defined as encompassing euphemism, mitigation, and gradation, and provides examples and explanations of each. Regarding the euphemistic function, the author tells the reader that euphemisms involve the substitution of expressions to avoid directly mentioning taboo topics. 2 examples are analyzed: one of these involves the use of chichemecas (a Pre-Columbian Indigenous nation) instead of chichis (tits), employed to avoid the embarrassment of speaking about breasts in front of younger family members. For the subfunction of mitigation, 2 examples are given in which speakers reduce the aggressiveness or illocutionary force of insults to maintain verbal courtesy and avoid negative reactions. In the first example, the speaker replaces an insult involving the word hocico (snout) with océano pacífico (Pacific Ocean). Regarding gradation, 2 examples are provided in which moléfomos are used to shift the contextual framing of an utterance. In one case, the expression qué pasó (what happened?) is replaced with qué pasión (what passion!), spoken by a speaker responding to a customer complaint, to signal willingness to cooperate and assist. The next subfunction examined is intensification. The author introduces Briz Gómez’s (2011) definition of intensification, as adding force or expressiveness to an utterance through emphasis, expression, gestures, and/or semantic modifiers. 2 examples are shown, both using Simón. Another observed function is the creation of a pleasant atmosphere. 2 examples are shown in which the moléfomo appears in clear situations of communicative immediacy alongside other lexical items, to express familiarity, strong emotional involvement, and a relaxed tone, without any signs of attenuation or intensification and without modifying the illocutionary force of the speech act. For the final subfunction, marking playful communication, 8 examples from the corpus are analyzed. The first is a long excerpt containing multiple instances of moléfomos. The author draws on the concept of homo ludens proposed by Johan Huizinga (2006), who defines play as a universal human activity. In these examples, the principal purpose of the moléfomo appears to be social wordplay with a comic effect. Simón is frequently used, although many other moléfomos are also attested with the same function. While the context and purpose of the wordplay vary across examples, in general, the illocutionary force is not modified. Based on the high number of examples shown, this function of moléfomos appears to be the most common in the corpus. The author found no evidence in the corpus of misunderstandings caused by moléfomos. However, one example is presented in which a participant self-corrects from a conventional word to a moléfomo, clearly marking the utterance as part of a situation of communicative immediacy, suggesting that the absence of a moléfomo could potentially cause misunderstandings. Subsequently, the author summarizes the main findings and reminds the reader that this list of pragmatic subfunctions of moléfomos is not exhaustive.
Chapter 7 summarizes the previous sections and reflects on the limitations of the study and directions for future research, emphasizing the study’s limited generalizability (as a qualitative study). Accordingly, the author proposes a quantitative study on the frequency of different functions of moléfomos. She also acknowledges that the study may have missed particular functions, as it is not necessarily 100% representative of all of Mexican Spanish, and proposes further pragmatic research on moléfomos. By proposing functional patterns of the use of moléfomos in her thesis, the author hopes to inspire additional research in and beyond the pragmatics of moléfomos. The chapter ends with the confirmation that moléfomos have a multifaceted set of functions and are not difficult for speakers to use.
Overall, the book achieves its goal: describing the phenomenon of moléfomos and providing an extensive first look at their pragmatic functions. As the author herself points out, this is important for a variety of reasons. Moléfomos are both understudied and quite common, and this is the first work to examine their pragmatic functions. It opens the door for further studies to explore other pragmatic functions of moléfomos, to investigate the phenomenon quantitatively, to extend the analysis beyond the larger Guadalajara area to other parts of Mexico, and to consider in more detail the factors that lead to the use of specific moléfomos (e.g., Simón). The moléfomo Simón seems particularly interesting, as it is common and associated with specific functions such as intensification and playfulness. It would be worthwhile to investigate why this particular moléfomo takes on these functions so frequently, and whether this tendency is reproduced in other, larger samples from other geographic locations. Furthermore, this study is the first to use a large corpus of spoken data to investigate the phenomenon, rather than relying on small samples, written data, or intuition. The corpus itself is a significant accomplishment due to its very large size and usability for studying a variety of phenomena, including but also going beyond moléfomos in the Spanish spoken in the greater Guadalajara area. The use of tables and transcriptions is also quite helpful. Examples are embedded effectively wherever needed, particularly in the analysis section, which greatly facilitates comprehension of the phenomena and the findings. It was never unclear to me what moléfomos were, and I could analyze the pragmatic functions of moléfomos along with the author, in large part due to the effective use of examples. The order in which the sections appear is very logical, assisting my comprehension of the work, though it must be said that the chapter lengths are quite inconsistent. For organizational purposes, it may have been helpful to divide the methodology and literature review into 2 chapters and to split the analysis chapter as well. Conversely, the shorter chapters, justifying the selection of Guadalajara for data collection on the one hand and the use of the term moléfomo on the other, could have been combined with previous chapters. Although the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara seems to be a reasonable choice in terms of representativeness, I was not entirely convinced by all the justifications provided. Although the area is representative in terms of many demographic factors, and the author ensured that men and women across a variety of social class backgrounds were included in the sample. However, the area chosen has a relatively small indigenous population and, like any part of Mexico, is located within a particular dialect region. As such, the Guadalajara area, and any part of Mexico, for that matter, necessarily excludes speakers of other regional varieties. Furthermore, since the variety of Mexican Spanish spoken in and around Guadalajara is relatively close to the national standard, such a choice specifically excludes particularly divergent regional Mexican Spanish speakers. For this reason, and as the author herself acknowledges, it would be helpful to study this phenomenon in larger samples, drawn from other parts of Mexico, as well. The methodology and use of a variety of frameworks are both well justified. Although only a small percentage of possible examples were extracted from the corpus for qualitative analysis, the large size of the corpus was quite impressive and lends credibility to the results. However, I would have liked to know more about how the specific examples of moléfomos were selected for qualitative analysis, whether the choice was made by the author due to the exemplary nature of the conversations or through a more randomized process. Although I was convinced by the data and the use of diverse theoretical frameworks, I was not sure that every framework was equally applicable. For instance, ethnography is mentioned in the methodology section but not clearly defined, and it does not play a prominent role in the analysis. The approach taken in the analysis seems to align more closely with other forms of discourse analysis. If the ethnographic component is important, it would have been helpful to explain its relevance and scope in more detail. It is clear that the author went to the field and lived among the community she studied, but it remains unclear to what extent this qualifies as ethnography. Furthermore, some of the concepts introduced in the literature review do not reappear in the analysis, and vice versa, and while the survey of existing work on moléfomos is very detailed and clearly demonstrates the lack of serious research on the topic, it could have been shortened and streamlined for a book format. These issues occasionally disrupt the narrative flow of the book, which caused me to sometimes lose track of the overall purpose of the study during these sections, only to be reminded again during the much clearer analysis section. Despite this critique, I still consider that the sections surveying the literature would be very useful for anyone seeking concise descriptions of existing studies on moléfomos, other forms of lexical modifications (like verlan), and/or the theories presented in chapter 5. It is a double-edged sword: the same information that interrupts the narrative flow also acts as a highly valuable reference point for readers looking for summaries of this prior work. Although the text is clearly academic in nature, it is written to be accessible to educated non-specialists, a further strength of the work. Moléfomos themselves are likely to be familiar to many readers, who may find it engaging to learn about their pragmatic functions. From a lay perspective, the phenomenon is highly interesting. However, it is not always clear in the text what the scientific relevance of moléfomos is beyond the fact that they are common and understudied. The author hints at further scientific relevance, suggesting that moléfomos may appear morphologically and functionally similar to phenomena such as jerigonza or verlan, despite actually fulfilling very different functions or being formed in different ways. If this point had been made more explicitly as a compelling scientific reason for studying moléfomos, the relevance of the phenomenon for linguistics would have been even clearer.
Despite the book’s minor weaknesses in organization and scope, the work still makes a significant scholarly achievement: it is the first study dedicated to moléfomos, a phenomenon that is both widespread in Mexican Spanish and cross-linguistically unique in the way it modifies lexemes to fulfill various pragmatic functions. The author creates a convincing name for this phenomenon, offers extensive preliminary documentation of its pragmatic functions, and produces a large, original corpus of spoken Spanish from the Metropolitan Area of Guadalajara. The authors cited in the book, as well as others interested in Mexican Spanish and the pragmatics of colloquial speech, will undoubtedly find the work interesting and valuable for their own research. The book also contains excellent summaries of the pragmatic theories applied therein (to be found in Chapter 5), concise but detailed reviews of existing research on related but distinct linguistic modifications in urban and prison populations in Romance-speaking contexts (Chapter 2), and a thorough survey of all the previous linguistic and non-linguistic work on moléfomos (Chapter 3). It therefore serves as an outstanding resource for researchers working on these topics, as well as for those intending to do their own research on moléfomos or the pragmatics of other types of lexical modifications. I strongly recommend the book as a reference work for any researcher engaged in these areas.
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