“¿Porque tú lo vales o porque lo vales?” Variation of the second-person tú in advertising messages

Abstract

Expressed and omitted variants of the pronominal subjects in Spanish may be
explained according to cognitive salience and textual informativeness. These
cognitive properties contribute to creating different meanings in discourse that
perform concrete communicative goals, as is the case of print advertising
messages. A corpus compiling this textual typology will serve to analyze the
communicative functions conveyed by either the expressed or omitted variant of

the second-person tú. Whereas the former focuses on the referent of the
pronoun as unique or exclusive consumer of the product, the latter displays the
pragmatic attention over the whole message involving a wider and more
generalized recipient of the advertising content. Both variants can also be used
in the same message this also implying a meaning according to certain
communicative purposes.