Beyond Distinción: Media, Identity, and the Strategic Use of /s/ and /θ/ in Andalusian Spanish

Third‐wave sociolinguistics emphasizes speakers’ agentive roles in leveraging linguistic variation to construct and reinforce social identities. The present study examines how speakers of Andalusian Spanish navigate sociolinguistic variables, with a particular focus on mediatized contexts. We analyze variation between the /s/ and /θ/ phonemes in the speech of Joaquín Sánchez Rodríguez, a prominent Andalusian athlete and media figure. Drawing on 66 YouTube videos across formal and informal settings, we analyze how Joaquín navigates between the three reference systems associated with /s/~/θ/ usage ( distinción , ceceo , seseo ). We show that linguistic “scripts” privileging distinción create conditions for identity work through marked features like ceceo and seseo . Rather than merely imposing constraints, however, these scripts paradoxically augment the indexical potential of marked variants, fostering a dynamic interplay between agency and structure in public discourse. Finally, this study challenges claims that social meaning primarily attaches to phonetic elements rather than phonological relations.