Spanish greeting formulae in the Age of Discovery

Abstract

At the end of the fifteenth century, the notable growth of the bourgeoisie — in economic and sociological terms (Fernández Álvarez 1970) — made the society of the time opt for the cere- monial fashion (Lapesa 1970) and created new (linguistic and extralinguistic) rites, that distinguished certain members of a highly hierarchical society. It can be assumed that this fact also had an impact on the greeting formulae, typical of the expressive speech act. Thus, it is worth studying them. A systematic search of the CORDE database will identify these types of formulae, their sociocultural distribution and their discursive preferences.