Sociolinguistic and functional variation in the use of direct reported speech in Spanish in the corpus CoLaGe-Valencia

Previous research has found gendered variation in the use of direct reported speech (DRS) in Spanish and other languages, generally suggesting that women use it more often than men, which has been attributed to women’s allegedly higher intersubjectivity. The present study examines DRS in a corpus specifically designed for the study of gendered variation in Spanish. Qualitatively, we identify two basic functions of DRS: narrative and evaluative. We then conduct statistical analyses focusing on gender, age, and discourse topics, considering also the discourse function of the stretch of DRS and to whom it is attributed. Our analyses did not reveal significant gender variation. Rather, speakers’ age, discourse topic, and function of DRS turned out to be more relevant factors, reducing the role of speakers’ gender in accounting for sociolinguistic variation. The study contributes to the growing body of research on DRS and to the less studied field of language and gender in Spanish.