SISTEMI DI ALLOCUZIONE E DEISSI SOCIALE. PRATICHE PRAGMATICHE E SOCIOLINGUISTICHE DI UNA COMUNITÀ LINGUISTICA DI MINORANZA

The aim of this paper is to explore the use of address pronouns, as deictic refer-ences, by speakers of Guardia Piemontese, an Occitan linguistic minority in Calabria (South Italy). Drawing on pragmatics and sociolinguistics theoretical and methodological approaches, this study aims to analyze the grammatical use of address forms and shows how the size of a linguistic community can affect the encoding of social and interactional context and how this is able to act on speakers’ language choices. Finally, the identifica-tion of address forms proves functional in documenting the system, filling a knowledge gap related to a minority language variety.