Orality in the XVI century: the literary and the private (I). Discursive markers

This article aims to contribute to the study of orality in sixteenth-century Spanish as part of the variational space of the language. It analyses a set of discourse markers (modalizing bien or bueno, conversational mira or si hare, and connecting en fin or tambien) that are typical of conceptional orality. Two complementary corpora form the database, which provides much-needed usage contexts of the markers under investigation. We use two complementary corpora of private letters written from Hispanic America and a literary text (Retrato de la Locana andaluza) representative of the mimesis of spoken language. Although largely synchronic, diachronic-oriented variation is not neglected. We conclude that though both sub-corpora have different discourse mechanisms and strategies and, therefore, reveal a difference in the usage and frequency of markers, they share common features that place them on coincident or approximate points on the gradual scale between communicative immediacy and distance in written language.