Revista de Variación y Cambio Lingüístico 2(1) 2025
ISSN: 3020-9854
Doi: https://doi.org/10.30827/3020.9854rvcl.2.1.2025.32047
205
Language, politics, and power: a sociophonetic comparison of political
and community norms in Galician Spanish
Lengua, política y poder: una comparación sociofonética de las normas políticas y
comunitarias en el español de Galicia
Matthew Pollock
Louisiana State University Shreveport
Matthew.Pollock@lsus.edu
Abstract
Politicians style-shift between regional and national variants as a means of constructing a coherent
identity and appealing to voters. In Spain, previous research in the south has shown how conservatives
may favor normative national variants, while socialists employ regional ones to connect with working-
class and rural communities. However, little research has examined political speech in Spanish in the
north of the country. The current study examines how six rural speakers and six politicians from Galicia
use sociophonetic variation, including consonant clusters, word-nal /n/, vowel height, intervocalic /d/,
and coda /s/. Findings reveal that politicians' speech reects previously observed trends: usage varies
by the party and social context of the speaker, with intervocalic /d/ elision occurring more frequently
among politicians than rural speakers. This supports previous hypotheses about stylistic variation in
Peninsular Spanish political speech. Furthermore, by analyzing regionally salient phenomena, this
study develops a baseline for Galician political speech, showing how stylistic choices align with
broader patterns in Peninsular Spanish, demonstrating the agentive use of language to navigate identity
and sociopolitical positioning.
Keywords: political speech, Galician Spanish, identity, sociophonetics, regional variation.
Resumen
Los políticos alternan de estilo entre variantes regionales y nacionales como una forma de construir
una identidad coherente y atraer a los votantes. En España, investigaciones previas en el sur han
mostrado cómo los conservadores tienden a favorecer variantes nacionales normativas, mientras que
los socialistas emplean variantes regionales para conectar con las comunidades rurales y la clase
trabajadora. Sin embargo, se ha investigado poco el discurso político en español en el norte del país. El
presente estudio analiza cómo seis hablantes rurales y seis políticos de Galicia emplean la variación
sociofonética, incluyendo grupos consonánticos, /n/ nal de palabra, altura vocálica, /d/ intervocálica
y /s/ en coda. Los resultados revelan que el discurso de los políticos reeja tendencias previamente
observadas: el uso varía según el partido y el contexto social del hablante, siendo la elisión de /d/
intervocálica más frecuente entre políticos que entre hablantes rurales. Esto respalda hipótesis previas
sobre la variación estilística en el discurso político del español peninsular. Además, al analizar
fenómenos regionalmente relevantes, este estudio establece una base para el discurso político
gallego, mostrando cómo las elecciones estilísticas se alinean con patrones más amplios en el español
peninsular y demuestran el uso consciente del lenguaje para navegar la identidad y el posicionamiento
sociopolítico.
Palabras clave: habla política, español de Galicia, identidad, sociofonética, variación regional.
RECEIVED: 15-01-2025; ACCEPTED: 06-04-2025
Variación 2(1) 2025, pp. 205-230
Language, politics, and power: a sociophonetic comparison of political and community norms inGalician Spanish
206
1. INTRODUCTION
Speakers often style-shift between prestige and non-prestige phonetic variants, but politicians
in particular uniquely leverage language to reect their social positions and appeal to voters. In
southern Spain, studies by Hernández-Campoy & Cutillas-Espinosa (2013) and Pollock &
Wheeler (2022) reveal that politicians employ regional variants to connect with local
communities, indexing regional identity and solidarity through sociophonetic variants. Left-
leaning politicians in Spain have been shown to favor regional features, while conservatives
instead opt to use normative national variants, reecting distinct political goals. Similar
ndings in British and US English (e.g., Hall-Lew, Friskney & Scobbie, 2017) suggest these
tendencies may be widespread in political speech, but further research across the Iberian
Peninsula is needed.
The current study examines sociophonetic variation in the northwestern Autonomous
Community of Galicia to explore whether the indexical tendencies identied here align with
those observed in southern Spain. It analyzes regional features characteristic of Galician
Spanish, including consonant cluster elision (Rojo, 2005), velarization and reduction of word-
nal /n/ (e.g., Tomé Lourido & Evans, 2021; Martínez-Gil, 2022), atonic raising of the mid-vowels
(e.g., Martínez-Gil, 2022; Regueira & Fernández-Rei, 2020), as well as broader tendencies from
across northern varieties of Peninsular Spanish, including intervocalic /d/ reduction (Gil-Peña
2004; Villena-Ponsoda & Moya-Corral, 2016), and coda /s/ retention (Gil-Peña 2004; Samper-
Padilla, 2011). Just as Spanish has been described to have had a major impact on urban
prestige varieties of the Galician language (e.g., González González, 2003; Regueira, 2016), the
rst four features in the previous list are in turn associated with norms in the Galician language,
and as such are perceptually governed by a complicated eld of indexical meaning and
language ideology.
Galicia’s political landscape is notable, in contrast to some other parts of Spain, for its three
dominant parties: two national (left and right of center) and a left-leaning regional nationalist
party. The Spanish
1
speech of twelve individuals – six rural speakers and six politicians (two
from each party) – was analyzed to compare community and political speech. This study
investigates correlations between political a�iliation and regional variation, as observed in
southern Spain, and considers the inuence of social factors such as gender and age on
variable usage.
2. PREVIOUS LITERATURE
2.1 Speaker identity construction and political speech
Sociolinguistic style was initially framed as attention paid to speech in early sociolinguistic
research (Labov, 1972; Trudgill, 1972), with less attention correlating with greater use of
vernacular features. However, recent studies indicate that stylistic inventories are more varied,
extending beyond the simple binary of vernacular versus non-vernacular (Bucholtz & Hall,
2005). For example, Coupland (2001) demonstrated how speakers’ goals shape stylistic
choices, allowing for coherent identity construction, in his analysis of a style-shifting Welsh
1 While there is a high rate of Spanish-Galician bilingualism in the province, in order to allow for comparability with previous research into
variation in Spanish political speech, only spoken Spanish was included in the analysis.
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Matthew Pollock
207
radio DJ. Social meaning can be attributed to certain stylistic choices, as Silverstein (2003)
describes, with salient features permitting interpretation and the conveyance of social
meaning in language. Speaker agency also plays an important role in understanding style-
shifting (Du Bois, 2007), as taking a stance shows accommodation toward or away from certain
groups and can inuence speakers’ linguistic choices as a result. There is also an important
interaction between the forms that speakers use and the meaning-based social system
surrounding language, which Eckert (2008) terms “bricolage.” In this model, linguistic variables
have a contextual meaning, connecting speakers with their communities of practice and
serving to craft the self alongside other social signals like clothing and self-presentation.
In politics, “bricolage” describes how politicians use symbols like language to align with
political parties and voters. As Hernández-Campoy and Cutillas-Espinosa (2010, p. 307)
describe in their analysis of a female Murcian president, María Antonia Martínez, “the use of
local features – very much associated with the working class world and with progressive ideas
– might be a strategic way of building a particular image and projecting her socialist identity…
[while] the use of standard features may be associated with conservative ideas and the accent
of the bourgeoisie.” In an interview with the former politician, the authors (2013, p. 96) nd that
she consciously developed a linguistic persona to represent herself as Murcian, using high
rates of regional features to associate with her working-class background despite her careers
both as a politician and a lawyer.
Meanwhile, in their analysis of the female Andalusian president Susana Díaz, Pollock and
Wheeler (2022, p. 203) conclude that her reliance on certain regional features reects “the
realities of Díaz’s identity as a speaker of a stigmatized dialect (although nonetheless a prestige
variety within Andalusia), a ‘militant’ member of the Socialist Party, and a woman holding a
position of major power in Spain.” Pollock (2023) further examined the extent to which
individual factors and regional norms a�ect political speech as well, nding that specic goals
and motivations also inuence speech di�erences. Cruz-Ortiz (2022) analyzes diachronic data
from Andalusian politicians over several decades, nding evidence of convergence toward
Madrid norms when addressing northern audiences and, on the other hand, cases of individual
style-shifting that were important in understanding language use. In all of these situations,
socialist politicians used language as a means of showing belonging and of contrasting
themselves with the normative tendencies of their opponents and peers.
Researchers have considered the inuence of language ideologies and Galician indexicality on
political speech, as well as regional attitudes toward Galician. Amarelo (2023) focuses on a
speech by the at-the-time president of the region, Alberto Núñez Feijoo, emphasizing a
metalinguistic debate regarding the use of Galicia (Castilian Spanish) versus Galiza (the
historical form, favored by the left and nationalist parties). In the second half of this study,
Amarelo then looks at perceptions of Galician on the gay dating app Grindr, showing how
Galician serves as a locus of linguistic conict in relation to users’ decisions to use Spanish or
Portuguese orthographic conventions. In a broader perceptual examination of Galician,
González González et al. (2003) examine stereotypes surrounding use of the language,
including by “neofalantes” who have recently embraced the language in urban areas, and non-
urban speakers negatively evaluated as rural and vernacular.
As a result of these divisions in Galician use, Regueira (2016) nds, Spanish political and
discursive norms have been adopted into Galician. Politicians favor the urban variety of
Galician, which includes Castilian phonetic inuences on vowels, and a tendency to produce
word-nal nasals as alveolar, rather than velar. Part of the reason for these di�erences may
Variación 2(1) 2025, pp. 205-230
Language, politics, and power: a sociophonetic comparison of political and community norms inGalician Spanish
208
stem from the social contexts in which Galician and Spanish are found. Ramallo (2007)
discusses a tendency for Spanish to be associated with prestige and public speech domains
historically, while Galician has been relegated to rural contexts. While Galician is a co-o�icial
language in the region and is the dominant language in political speech, Castilian Spanish is
heavily present in the mass media more broadly, as well as in religion, education, and urban
communities. Based on this complex web of indexical meaning associated with the language,
Galician presents a particularly charged eld of indexicality, which has clear ramications for
its use in political speech.
Style-shifting in political speech is also evident in English-speaking contexts. Hall-Lew,
Coppock, and Starr (2010, 2012) found that U.S. Congress members’ pronunciation of Iraq
reected political alignment: Republicans used what they termed the “dismissive” [æ], while
Democrats used the “European-inuenced” [ɑ], showing divisions along party lines.
Meanwhile, Holliday (2017) showed that Barack and Michelle Obama’s speech reected both
linguistic backgrounds and agentive adaptation to their roles, with Michelle displaying more
African American English (AAE) features than Barack while conducting interviews as President
and First Lady. Finally, in the U.K., Hall-Lew, Friskney, and Scobbie (2017) observed di�erences
in CAT vowel production between Scottish National Party and Scottish Labor Party members,
linking SNP politicians’ more Scottish pronunciations to their secessionist stance. All of these
studies suggest that regional sociophonetic variation in political speech reects not only
aspects of the current political situation, but also the social meaning of variants and how they
could be applied in unique political contexts.
2.2 Sociophonetic variation in Galician Spanish
Galicia, the northwesternmost province in Spain, has a strong bilingual tradition in Spanish and
Galician. This study focuses exclusively on sociophonetic variation in Galician Spanish, an
area that has received limited sociolinguistic attention. Six phenomena were analyzed: four
regional features were selected based on their status in Galician and the regular appearance in
descriptions of frequent phonological Galician Spanish phenomena (e.g., Tomé Lourido &
Evans, 2021; Martínez-Gil, 2022; Rojo, 2005)—consonant cluster reduction, word-nal /n/
velarization and elision, atonic /e/ and /o/ raising—and two features relevant to political
discourse in other parts of Peninsular Spanish—intervocalic /d/ reduction and coda /s/
retention. However, as Regueira and Fernández-Rei (2020, p. 331) note, research on Galician
Spanish has historically been sparse, with even recent focus being primarily placed on
“Galician speakers who occasionally use Spanish,” rather than on “Spanish speakers in
Galicia.” This complicates e�orts to describe trends belonging to the variety.
The rst variable, consonant cluster reduction, involves simplifying stops, such as those in
acto ‘act’[akto] becoming [ato]. Rojo (2005, p. 1094) describes this as a common phenomenon
in many words and with various stops, including /b/ (abstracto → astrato ‘abstract’), /p/
(corrupto → corruto ‘corrupt’), and /g/ (magnico → manico ‘magnicent’). Other related
phenomena, including interdentalization of the rst consonant (i.e., [akto] as [aθto]) or
insertion of [j] or [w] in place of [θ], are identied by Rojo (2005) in Galician Spanish and
Martínez-Gil (2022) in Galician.
The second variable is word-nal nasal velarization and reduction with vowel nasalization.
Tomé Lourido and Evans (2021, p. 53) and Martínez-Gil (2022) both note that velarization in
word-nal position is a typical Galician feature. While common in several Spanish varieties
Variación 2(1) 2025, pp. 205-230
Matthew Pollock
209
(e.g., Argentinean and Dominican [Bongiovanni, 2021]) and described as being part of Galician
Spanish (Freixeiro Mato, 2006), this process remains under-researched from a sociolinguistic
and phonetic perspective in northwestern Spain.
The third and fourth phenomena—atonic /e/ and /o/ raising—arise from distinctions in Galician
mid-vowels (Regueira & Fernández-Rei, 2020, p. 331). Rojo (2005, p. 1093) describes a
di�erence in the “degrees of openness” in Galician Spanish
2
for /e/ in words like [beŋ.go]
(vengar
1SG.PRES
) and [bɛŋ.go] (venir
1SG.PRES
). A lower, more open mid vowel is often found in tonic
word-nal position, such as in café ‘co�ee,’ té ‘tea,’ luego ‘then’and tienes ‘you have,’ while the
vowel in atonic contexts is produced more like [ɪ]. A similar contrast in openness is identied
for /o/ in [so.sa] ‘chemical product’ and [sɔ.sa] ‘without salt.’ While tonic /o/, as in canción
‘song,’ tends to have a lower production, the vowel in atonic word-nal position tends to raise,
approximating [ʊ]. These production di�erences may stem from contact with the Galician
language (e.g., Aguete Cajiao, 2025). De la Fuente-Iglesias and Pérez-Castillejo (2020, p. 316)
note that /e/ is lower and /o/ is lower and more backed in Spanish than in Galician, suggesting
that bilingual speakers may have greater mobility in their vowel space than monolingual
speakers of central Peninsular varieties. Regueira & Fernández-Rei (2020) examine vowels and
intonation contours, nding that while the seven vowel system of Galician is not reproduced in
speakers’ Galician Spanish, there is a reduction of nal vowels that could suggest a
maintenance of the covert prestige of Galician.
Intervocalic /d/ reduction, though well-studied from a phonetic perspective in Peninsular
Spanish more broadly, has not received attention from a quantitative perspective for Galician
Spanish. In Madrid, Gil-Peña (2004) and Ruiz-Martínez (2003) identify the most frequent
production of intervocalic /d/ as the dental approximate allophone [ð
̞
]. The inuence of
linguistic factors on this reduction process is considerable: in an examination of the
phenomenon in Granada and Málaga, Villena-Ponsoda and Moya-Corral (2016) nd that
morphology and type frequency, among other linguistic factors, are more important in
predicting variation than social factors. Others, such as Molina-Martos and Paredes-García
(2014), have found that social and stylistic factors including speech style and topic are also
important. While women tend to be more conservative regarding intervocalic /d/ production in
Madrid (Gil-Peña, 2004), men often favor elision (Molina-Martos, 1998). This pattern is
presumed to extend to Galicia.
Finally, coda /s/ retention contrasts with the aspiration and elision common in southern Spain
and the Americas. Retention ([s]) is typically associated with northern and central Peninsular
Spanish (Gil-Peña, 2004), while aspiration ([h]) and elision ([Ø]) occur in southern varieties
(Samper-Padilla, 2011, p. 100). Additionally, socioeconomic class, gender, and age stratify /s/
use: higher-status and younger speakers favor retention, whereas aspiration occurs more
among older or working-class speakers (Samper-Padilla, 2011, p. 106). Villena-Ponsoda &
Vida-Castro (2020) discuss this as a part of an ongoing change in Andalusian Spanish, blending
central and southern Castilian norms as young, urban, middle-class speakers move closer to
the national standard while retaining important regional markers that index belonging to an
incipient speech community. As with the intervocalic /d/, this study expects that this
stratication extends to Galicia, although this will be veried in the analysis.
2 This distinction reects a di�erence between mid-high and mid-low vowels in Galician, the latter of which would map onto the symbol for
the open-mid [ɛ] (e.g., Martínez-Gil, 2022; Regueira & Fernández Rei, 2024).
Variación 2(1) 2025, pp. 205-230
Language, politics, and power: a sociophonetic comparison of political and community norms inGalician Spanish
210
Overall, these six phenomena were selected as representative of possible contexts for
phonetic variation associated with Galician Spanish, in the hopes of capturing variables
accessible for style-shifting purposes that politicians would employ in regular speech.
2.3 Research questions
This study contrasts rural speech norms with political speech in Galician Spanish through a
variationist lens in order to address three key questions.
First, it examines the linguistic and extralinguistic factors inuencing regional variation.
Previous research (e.g., Hernández-Campoy & Cutillas-Espinosa, 2010, 2013; Pollock &
Wheeler, 2022) suggests that gender and age shape regional variant use, while political
a�iliation plays a crucial role among politicians.
Second, the study compares rural speech with that of politicians. While both groups belong to
the same speech community and share general interpretive norms (e.g., Labov, 1972),
politicians are expected to show greater stylistic variability. Particularly those in Galicia from
national parties had professional a�iliations that could lead them to produce more normative
speech patterns, di�erentiating them from rural speakers, while individual motivations could
increase variability in norms of production (e.g., Cruz-Ortiz, 2022; Pollock, 2023).
Finally, the study situates Galician political speech within a broader conversation on
Peninsular Spanish identity work. Research on Murcian, Andalusian, and northern central
Peninsular varieties highlights region-specic phenomena, but certain patterns, such as the
tendency of female and left-leaning politicians to favor regional variants, associated with rural
and working-class speakers, are hypothesized to hold across Spain (e.g., Hernández-Campoy
and Cutillas-Espinosa, 2013; Pollock & Wheeler, 2022; Pollock, 2023). Work by Villena-
Ponsoda, Vida-Castro & Molina-García (2022), for example, has shown how the combination of
Andalusian linguistic resources leads to the development of identity, with certain forms taking
on social meaning and speakers navigating changes over time to allow them to receive a
specic type of evaluation from listeners. The current study investigates whether these broader
tendencies extend to Galicia.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Speaker selection
To allow for comparison with previous analyses of political speech (e.g., Pollock & Wheeler,
2022), twelve speakers were selected – six representing political speech in Galicia and six
drawn from the Corpus Oral y Sonoro del Español Rural (COSER, ‘Audible Corpus of Spoken
Rural Spanish’; Fernández-Ordóñez, 2005).
Among the politicians, one male and one female speaker were chosen from each of Galicia’s
three major political parties (Rama, 2018). Selection criteria included holding comparable
political positions and conducting public interviews exclusively in Castilian Spanish. The
parties represented were the conservative national Partido Popular ‘People’s Party,’ the left-
leaning national Partido Socialista Obrero Español ‘Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party,’ and the
left-leaning regional Bloque Nacionalista Galego ‘Galician Nationalist Bloc.’ To control for
contextual variation and adopt a speaker-design approach (Coupland, 2001), 40 minutes of
unscripted interviews with male TV hosts were collected for each politician.
Variación 2(1) 2025, pp. 205-230
Matthew Pollock
211
The rural data included four male and two female COSER speakers over the age of 60, residing
within 100 miles of A Coruña
3
. These speakers were interviewed by a male Galician interviewer,
minimizing variability in the speech context. Their inclusion was intended to test the theory by
Hernández-Campoy and Cutillas-Espinosa (2010, p. 307) for southern Spain, which posits that
politicians adopt local linguistic phenomena to signal solidarity with rural and working-class
communities, particularly in left-leaning contexts. Older rural speakers from the COSER
corpus are theorized to embody aspects of Galician identity that politicians may see as
advantageous to emulate.
Table 1 provides social information, including the name, political party, and position for
politicians only, and the age, year of speech, gender, and regional origin of all speakers. Figure
1 maps the location of all speakers, corresponding to their numbering in Table 1.
Figure 1. Region where speakers were born (created using Map Customizer, 2023)
Table 1. Speaker and interview information for politicians (1-6) and COSER speakers (7-12)
# Name/Group Party Position in Galicia Age Year Gender Region
1 Ana Pontón BNG Party spokesperson 39-45 2016-2022 Female Lugo
2 Néstor Rego BNG Congressperson 58-60 2020-2022 Male Lugo
3 Pilar Rojo PP
Galician Parliament
President
52-54 2012-2014 Female La Coruña
4 Alfonso Rueda PP President 54 2022-2022 Male Pontevedra
5 Carmela Silva PSOE Party President 61-62 2021-2022 Female Vigo
6 Gonzalo Caballero PSOE Party Secretary 45 2020-2020 Male Pontevedra
7
COSER
Speakers
82 2017 Male As Somozas
8 66 2017 Male San Claudio
9 85 2012 Male Guitiriz
10 85 2012 Female Guitiriz
11 80 2017 Male Becerreá
12 81 2017 Female Becerreá
3 Because the origins of the 6 politicians included the provinces of Pontevedra, A Coruña, and Lugo, 2 audio les from each province were
originally sought out in the corpus, with a balanced number of speakers from each. However, COSER only made public a single interview
from Pontevedra, a conversation among 5 individuals not suited for close sociophonetic analysis – thus, all rural speakers are from A Coruña
and Lugo.