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This paper reports the results of a contrastive analysis of the instances of attenuation occurring in a set of Argentine and Spanish colloquial conversations. Attenuation -understood as a pragmatic phenomenon reducing the illocutionary force of communicative acts, which involves face and the speakers' responsibilities for their messages (Caffi 1999, 2007; Thaler; Albelda 2016)- has been studied to a significant extent in the Spanish language, beginning in the 1990s, from the perspective of politeness studies (Haverkate; Briz 1995, 2007), pragmatics (Schneider) and sociolinguistics (Samper Hernández; Cestero). However, studies concentrating on the comparison between its diatopic varieties are scarce (Briz 2007; Albelda 2008). This study quantitatively and qualitatively analyses the attenuation resources utilized in colloquial conversations between speakers aged 20-34 at the higher and middle social strata in the cities of Tucumán (Argentina) and Valencia (Spain). The analysis was based on a methodological data sheet (Albelda/ others) with the aim of finding the main similarities and differences between both diatopic varieties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper focuses on two of the major problems that have traditionally hindered the study of the so-called 'colloquial Spanish', namely (i) terminological hesitation and lack of consensus in referring to this linguistic form (designated indistinctly by terms such as 'language', 'speech', 'discourse', etc., on one side, and 'colloquial', 'spoken', 'conversational', etc., on the other side) and (ii) the lack of a clear and unitary definition of the object of study. For this purpose, first the most common designations and the conditions which make it possible to use them as synonymous are identified. Secondly, the conceptual structure of the most famous definitions and the linguistic and extralinguistic features of the object of study which each one of them emphasizes are analyzed. Finally, reasons for the perpetuation of the terminological and conceptual vagueness in the history of Spanish Linguistics are mentioned and a theoretical frame for a better definition of spoken or colloquial Spanish is suggested. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]