4.1.3. Pues (well / so)

The commentator pues is the second commonest marker in the general corpus. It generally has a double argumentative and illocutionary value in these messages (Briz Gómez, 1993: 173), which is manifest in the reactive interventions, and therefore it is possible to place it among the markers with an interactional macro-function, the functions of which are “to point out the interlocutors’ “conversational movements” and “to manifest a certain attitude to the information received” (Borreguero Zuloaga & López Serena, 2010: 178). In the messages analysed it expresses total (18) or partial (19) disagreement with that said by the speaker previously. In the first case, the speaker openly opposes the content of the ministerial tweet, denying its veracity, in the second, B limits or reduces the relevance of what his interlocutor has said concerning the capacity of the government to find solutions (note also the use of “I believe” as a strategy to attenuate the disagreement):

(18) So few, really, well (pues) I don’t believe they’re at all honest (Twiter, 10-03-2020).

(19) A: they’re distracting us with this “facemasks yes or no” business, and while people keep on about that, everything else is forgotten, it’s bread and circuses for the plebs

B: well (pues) I believe the government is distracted looking for solutions for everyone, in three months they’ve taken more steps and found more solutions than in many whole legislatures. [...] it’s others who are looking for distractions, the government doesn’t create them (Facebook, 19-05-2020).

It also transmits a collaborative response when the speaker wishes to manifest his/her agreement with the opinion of another user, as in (20). However, this value is manifest in few reactive messages on Facebook and YouTube. Therefore, its function in this context is normally that of transmitting disagreement:

(20) A: A little respect for this man, he’s a top expert, that’s why he’s where he is (and I can tell you, he has no interest in politics). [...]

B: well (pues) maybe that’s true... I’m not talking for any political motive (YouTube, 01-03-2020).

As we can see, when placed at the beginning of reactive comments, it acts as a connector and as a prototypical commentor of the informal oral variety of the language, as well as introducing a new comment (Portolés Lázaro, 1998; Porroche Ballesteros, 1996).

Apart from this, the marker, within the cognitive macro-function which indicates the logical-argumentative relationships established between the propositional contents of the text and, in the following messages, between the textual context and the speaker’s attitude (López Serena & Borreguero Zuloaga, 2010: 375-376), presents meta-discursive and co-orientated argumentative functions, the latter being both causal (21) and consecutive (22), values that are excluded from the Diccionario de partículas discursivas (Briz Gómez et al., 2008). On this occasion they are closer to the written conceptional variety. As we can see, these are longer messages in which other markers and hypotactical sentence structures are employed:

(21) I’ve been very patient with this government well (pues), I know that the position they’re in is far from easy, with Casado getting in the way all the time, but don’t let us down, we voted for you we don’t want the right, but we need a sincere left, [...] (Twitter, 04-06-2020).