paper (pdf) - Queens College - CUNY

Researchers: Kenny Cheng-­‐Fung
Shirley Arana
LCD 288: Voices of New York [Spring 2011]
Instructors: Michael Newman
Miki Makihara
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Queens College, CUNY
Tu vs. Usted:
How formal are you
Introduction
In English there are many pronouns but only one that can refer to ‘you’, ‘you’ can be used with
anyone, your mother, a colleague, student, this however is not the case on other languages. While
language may be the most natural thing that comes to humans, how we chose to express ourselves is
strongly influenced by society and social stratification. In French, German, Italian, Spanish and many
other languages there can be two singular pronouns of address. Both forms of singular pronouns
correlate with social standing, formality and power which makes it very important to use in context
when addressing someone. The variation of pronoun use can give insight to the dimensions of social life
and contribute to the analytical aspects behind social standing, being that how we see ourselves often
tends to depend on how others see us first. A person’s constant style of pronoun use, some say, can
even give away his/her own class status, their mood and attitude. Brown and Gilman in “The Pronouns
of Power and Solidarity” state that the “European development of two singular pronouns of address
began with the Latin tu and vos. In Italian they became tu and voi, in French tu and voi” and in Spanish
tu and vos which is now usted.

Literature Review Background
According to the studies done by Brown and Gilman “the use of the plural to the emperor began
in the fourth century. The choice of vos as a form of address may have been in response to this implicit
plurality. An emperor is also plural in another sense; he is the summation of his people and can speak as
their representative. Royal persons sometimes say ‘we’ where an ordinary man would say ‘I’”. Power is
said to be having control over another or several. Power is being able to control ones behavior or output
and is something that is almost never mutual in most dynamics. The difference in uses of ‘you’ has been
used before. However it is important to notice the suttle difference in the uses of pronouns from now
and then, though both do essentially focus on power, especially then, now through our studies it can be
seen more as a formality and reveal ones level of solidarity with others. Pope Gregory used tu to address
his subordinates and addresses in return with vos. Nobility used to (or variation of) to the common folk
and slaves, even Shakespeare (Byrne 1936) made his noble principals say tu and are given vos in return.
It seems as though the use of usted/vos (again or variations of) has always been introduced into society
(our own or foreign) at a high point and regarded to in such a way. Gradually we see from this study,
past studies and our general interaction with others that the use of singular pronoun has shifted to
display intimacy and formality.
Key Concept
For many especially those who reside in New York, even more specifically Queens, New York we
see and hear all kinds of cultures and languages. Everyday more and more people come to this country
to take part in the American Dream. This melting pot of people creates changes and introduces us to
many things. One thing we’ve seen growing up bilingual is just how much language can vary even within

our own small community. Spanish is spoken in many countries, but many Spanish speakers, both native
and non-­‐native can say that their Spanish is a unique reflection of them and their culture. In this
particular study we chose to focus on regional Spanish and the differences between Continental Spanish
(Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, Mexico, Panama, Honduras, El Salvador, etc) and Caribbean
Spanish (Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Cuba). To display the differences we hear often in New York,
being that we are so blended in cultures, we conducted a study to demonstrate and try to identify any
patterns behind the uses of tu and usted by Caribbean Spanish speakers and Continental Spanish
speakers. Spanish speakers use tu and usted which both mean “you”, to convey the formality of a
relationship. Tu is less formal than usted. We tend to use tu when we’re talking to someone of the same
age, same rank, or the same educational level. You can also use it when you want to express a certain
level of intimacy with someone. Most adults tend to address children using tu. Usted signifies a more
respectful way of talking to someone, such as a new acquaintance, usually with an older person or
someone you would consider to be at a higher rank. Gradually in Spanish a shift occurs from the formal
use of usted to the intimate level of tu, this does not however work vice-­‐versa. Since Spanish does tend
to vary from place to place, and many of us who live in the United States are influenced by our
surrounding cultures we chose to use these singular pronoun forms to portray just that difference. Does
usted still mean power Do we still identify with the use of usted and tu Does the use of usted or tu
really vary And just how natural does the difference of using these pronouns come to Spanish speakers,
native or non-­‐native
Research Questions

We mainly wanted to determine ‘whether people make a distinction among the usage of both
tu and usted’. However, as the research progressed, other questions emerged as ‘which one is more
frequently selected’.
As we tried to define the different connotations between tu and usted, we crossed among other
questions such as ‘is usted still associated to a certain level of respect’ and ‘if the younger generation
growing up in New York or in the United States do not have that input of formality that is connoted in
the language, is usted being eliminated’.
Methodology
For this project, we created a task where the participants were required to translate different
dialogues in five different scenarios. The first scenario is a conversation between a young student and a
teacher/professor. The second scenario is a conversation between a lost tourist woman asking for
directions to a stranger. The third scenario is a conversation between a mother and her 8-­‐year-­‐old son.
The fourth scenario is a conversation between 2 young girls. The fifth scenario is a conversation
between 2 young boys.
This task was created in a specialized survey website called SurveyMonkey.com and uploaded to
our social network websites such as Facebook.com in order to be able to obtain feedbacks from
speakers who reside not only from New York or the united States but to reach to speakers from South
America, Central America, the Caribbean Islands and even Spain.

Additionally, we performed some interviews to some of the survey takers to ask about their
attitudes, thoughts about the task, and to obtain more details on their Spanish level, their comfortability
and their frequency of the usage of Spanish. We also needed to verify whether the participant had an
equal level of dominance for both Spanish and English.
Data
The participants were asked to complete a translation task from several dialogues from English to
Spanish. There were 5 scenarios in the survey:
1. Imagine a conversation between a professor and a student discussing about a class topic. How
would you translate it into Spanish (P=Professor & S=Student)
2. Imagine a lost tourist woman asking directions to a random person to the nearest McDonalds.
How would you translate the following dialogue into Spanish (TW=Tourist Woman &
RP=Random Person)
3. Imagine a mother having a dialogue with her 8 year-­‐old son. How would you translate the
following dialogue into Spanish (M=Mother & S=Son)
4. Imagine 2 girls talking about the upcoming movie. How would you translate the following
dialogue into Spanish (G1=Girl #1 & G2=Girl #2)

5. Imagine 2 boys having a conversation about a sport game. How would you translate the
following dialogue (B1=Boy #1 & B2=Boy #2)
After the participants completed these tasks, they were asked for their background information such as:
1. Age and Gender
2. Family’s Geographical Origin
3. Parents’ and Participant’s Geographical Origin
4. Place where the Participant learned Spanish
5. Place where the Participant learned English or other Language(s)
Findings
We utilized 21 results collected from participants which 32% were males, 37% were females.
Surprisingly, 46% of the male participants used a combination of both tu and usted in contrast to a 27%
of the female participants. On the other hand, the female participants scored a 57% in the usage of tu
only in comparison to a 14% from the male participants.
Males Females Not Specified

# % # % # %
6 32 7 37 6 31
38
37
36
35
34
33
32
31
30
29
28
Gender
Males
Females
Not Specified
In this chart, we demonstrate the contrast in gender among our group of participants. As it shows in the
graph, we have a stronger feedback from females rather than from men with a discrepancy of 5%.
Males Females Not Specified TOTAL
# % # % # % # %
Tu 1 14 4 57 2 29
TOTAL 7 37
Usted 0 0 0 0 1 100
TOTAL 1 5

Both 5 46 3 27 3 27
TOTAL 11 58
120
100
80
60
40
Males
Females
Not Specified
20
0
Tu Usted Both
In this chart, we can see a total amount of inputs for our research. The chart is a representation of a
contrast between the usage of tu and usted and the gender of the participants.
Limitations
As we researched for data, we encountered many limitations. To start, we were told that our
task was too long and some participants did not have the time to complete it. Also, we crossed with the
problem of language fluency where some of the participants were either more fluent in English or in
Spanish but a few were equally fluent in both Spanish and English. While we were trying to collect data
from the website, we decided to place the background questions towards the end in order to avoid

participants suspecting about the purpose of the research. For that reason, we had many results where
the gender, age, and origin as inconclusive.
Conclusion
While still taking into our account all our limitations, we can still see a clear pattern for the use
of tu and usted. As much as we thought the actual use of either pronoun would not be so relevant in
young speakers we see that it was not the case. Setting boundaries and levels of respect reflects the
maturity our younger surveyors tried to portray. There is also a difference in Continental and Caribbean
Spanish which also hindered a change in the use of usted. Usted, from our results, was used more by
Continental Spanish speakers than Caribbean Spanish speaks. Sometimes the choice of a pronoun can
violate a group of norms or customary practices of the speaker and as time progresses we will be able to
see just how far power dynamics can really change in society. We have learned that for our bilingual
participants it was harder or not as natural to use usted in certain situations, they do acknowledge the
importance of it. From what we have gathered it is safe to say that our choice of variation for pronoun
uses may not always be consistent personal choices but reflections of our own culture and customs in
response to a setting.