Montesquieu, Rousseau, Herder. De las teorías climáticas a la voz del pueblo como factor constitutivo

This article shows in which way the so-called climate theories, which have been developed since Antiquity, change over the course of time and influence the different theories on the origin of language. Via Montesquieu and Rousseau, the “climate theories” have influenced Johann Gottfried Herder, who bases on the romantic concept of Volk. By this means, a lot of ideas come into being which are fundamental for the foundation and development of the national philologies in Europe.

Conflictos entre el pueblo y las autoridades. Bubenreuth: un ejemplo actual en Baviera

The sovereign of a democratic state is „the people“. However, they transfer their voices to a few political party representatives in order to make them exercise legislative and executive powers in the name of “the people”. In different European countries, this model of representative democracy is marked by elements of direct democracy. In Switzerland, for example, there are frequent plebiscites on a number of issues and in France, the President of the Republic is elected directly. In Germany, the constitution calls for a “Volksabstimmung”, or a referendum at the federal level, a “Volksentscheid” or plebiscite at the federal state level and a “Bürgerentscheid” at the city level. But in small municipalities where everyone knows each other and people talk, a different form of direct democracy continues on. In the case of Bubenreuth, where I have lived for more than 30 years, the community dared to raise its voice against the mayor and against town councillors to have them revoke the application of a legal but unjust regulation, or for them to at least mitigate the effects.

Nombre, imagen, cuerpo, voz. Apariciones del pueblo como grupo social diferenciado en textos del siglo XIX español: proclamas de la guerra contra Napoleón, Mariano José de Larra, Rosalía de Castro

This paper analyzes the emergence of the term 'pueble', or 'people', in Spanish literature of the nineteenth century with the meaning of differentiated social subject in a corpus composed of texts of the War of Independence by Mariano José de Larra and Rosalia de Castro. The texts and authors selected are representative of their cultural and historical contexts and together they form a part of the Spanish Romanticism.

Lo que sé de los hombrecillos de Juan José Millás: la ficción psicótica de la sociedad perfecta.

This short essay deals with literary representations of identity and of social reality, especially in relation to the novelistic works published by the Spanish writer Juan José Millás. The article is divided into three parts. The first section is dedicated to a general overview of the new perspectives brought by the contemporary ‘linguistic turn’ in culture, which is currently considered as the product of different discourses and not as an ontological datum. The postmodern condition, on the other hand, is described as the age in which it has become radically difficult to rely on such ideas as “nation” and “people” for the construction of personal identity. The second part of the article identifies Millás’ poetics as an excellent example of describing the neurotic symptoms produced by the urban way of life in Western communities. Millás recognizes the separateness between language and material reality as the origin of the subject's isolation, especially in contemporary life. Finally, the third part handles with Lo que sé de los hombrecillos, the last novel by Millás, in which we witness a significant switch from neurosis to psychosis in the mind of the protagonist who offers us a distorted realisation of his idea of community and plenitude.

Un urbis encomium a lo vulgar: el caso de los dictados tópicos

Analysis of popular topics taught in the light of the topics learned poetry, revolving around the urbis encomium, understanding the popular verses somehow respond to a similar structure to that established for the praise of copyright poetry. The popular songs are close to the issue which are specific to them, collected by imitation or by spontaneous coincidence and adopt many of the tools of author's lyric poetry. Within this framework, we go deeply into analogies we found when studying the group of songs we label " songs to the earth" with the topics of classical rhetoric making up the urbis encomium, the praise for the city.

Historia en voz baja: la oralidad y el rumor para la narración de la Guerra Civil española en la ‘Primera derrota’ de Alberto Méndez

The first of the four paths that structure the book "Los girasoles ciegos", by Alberto Méndez – with its theory about the delayed end of the Spanish Civil War as a longing for destruction outside of any kind of strategy based on military logic – presents the construction of a memory based on certain oral marks, facts provided quietly by apparently non-central characters, the distrust of written documents, and the use of speech patterns mostly associated with spontaneity in order to set up a level of verisimilitude which makes the memory emerge in parallel pathways considered relatively reliable (for example, the case of a report), forged speech on the basis of indirect references, testimonials and letters. The aim of the paper is to consider an example of contemporary Spanish narrative in which a journey, perhaps weak in terms of the material, support to the channels through which the narrator comes in the story through the voice of the people – but functional as an approach to a search of the recent past – contributes to a certain conception of memory.

Los amantes bajo los olivos. El simbolismo erótico del olivo en el cancionero popular hispánico

Traditional popular poetry follows a certain culture and has a literary canon that is very different from written poetry by educated authors. Among the elements that distinguish this poetry and that emphasize the continual presence of symbolism, which is manifested in the connotative reading of the texts, is a symbolism that refers to eroticism and to the romantic relationships of men. In these folk songs nature acquires a distinct meaning of love, for example by means of the presence of the olive as a frequent motif in Andalusian, Hispanic and European songs.

Analogy of the languages of southern Europe. Or, An easy method of learning, singly or collectively, the Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and French languages, by means of the Latin.

Mode of access: Internet.

Across the bridge: CLEF 2001 - Non-English monolingual retrieval. The French task.

This paper presents work on document retrieval based on first time participation in the CLEF 2001 monolingual retrieval task using French. The experiment findings indicated that Okapi, the text retrieval system in use, can successfully be used for non-English text retrieval. A lot of internal pre-processing is required in the basic search system for conversion into Okapi access formats. Various shell scripts were written to achieve the conversion in a UNIX environment, failure of which would significantly have impeded the overall performance. Based on the experiment findings using Okapi - originally designed for English - it was clear that, although most European languages share conventional word boundaries and variant word morphemes formed by the additon of suffixes, there is significant difference between French and English retrieval depending on the adaptation of indexing and search strategies in use. No sophisticated method for higher recall and precision such as stemming techniques, phrase translation or de-compounding was employed for the experiment and our results were suggestively poor. Future participation would include more refined query translation tools.

The Devil’s Daughters and a question of translation between Occitan and Anglo-Norman French: ‘De las .vii. filhas del diable’ (British Library Add. MS 17920).

The evidence for vernacular-to-vernacular translation is hard to demonstrate in medieval Romance languages. This article analyses a hypothesis published a century ago that there is an identifiable Anglo-Norman source for an Occitan prose text. Both texts spring from a Latin exemplum in which the seven capital vices are personified as the Devil's daughters, married off to seven social categories (the clergy, knights, peasants, etc.). Although the hypothesis is disproved, it remains that the dialogue between Anglo-Norman French and Occitan has been overlooked, and deserves further exploration.

Romantic languages pamphlets

A collection of miscellaneous pamphlets on the romance languages.

Les formes d’adresse dans un corpus de films français et leur traduction en finnois

The use of forms of address in French films and their Finnish translations The use of forms of address constitutes an integral part of speakers’ communicative competence. In fact, they are not only used to assign to whom the speech is addressed, but also to construct the relationship between speakers. However, the choice of a suitable form is not necessarily evident in modern, pluralistic society. By the notion form of address, I refer to pronouns of address (tu vs. vous) and different nouns of address like names, titles (Monsieur, Madame, Mademoiselle), kinship terms, occupational terms, terms of endearment and insults. The purpose of the present thesis is, first, to study the semantic and pragmatic values of forms of address in dialogues of modern French films, and, second, their translation in Finnish subtitles. It is evident that film language is not spontaneous, but only a representation of authentic speech, and that subtitles are a written version of the original spoken language. Consequently, this thesis studies spoken fictive dialogues and their written translations. The methods applied in the study are the Interactional and Pragmatic Approach as well as Translatology. The role of forms of address in an interpersonal relationship is studied with dimensions of distance and power (Brown and Gilman 1960, Kerbrat-Orecchioni 1992), whereas the pragmatic dimension permits studying in particular the use of forms of address in speech acts (Kerbrat-Orecchioni 2001). The translation strategies are studied with the help of Venuti’s (1995) notions of foreignizing and domesticating strategies. The results of the thesis suggest that the pronoun use in the studied films is usually reciprocal. However, the relations of power have not disappeared, but are expressed in a more discrete manner with nouns of address (for instance vous + Docteur vs. vous + Anita). The use of the pronoun of address vous seems still to be common, but increased intimacy is expressed by accompanying familiar nouns of address like first names. The nominal forms of address accompany different speech acts, but not in a systematic manner. In a dialogue they appear usually in the first speech act, and more rarely in the response, but not in both. In addition, they have an important role in the mechanics of conversation. The translators here face multiple demands, and their translations seem mostly to be a compromise between foreignizing and domesticating strategies.

La coordination et les phrases juxtaposées en français

Coordination and juxtaposed sentences The object of this study is the examination of the relations between juxtaposed clauses in contemporary French. The matter in question is sentences which are composed of several clauses adjoined without a conjunction or other connector, as in: Je détournai les yeux, mon c ur se mit à battre. The aim of the study is to determine, which quality is the relation in these sentences and, on the other hand, what is the part of the coordination there. Furthermore, what is this relation of coordination, which, according to some grammars, manifests through a conjunction of coordination, but which, according to some others is marked in juxtaposed sentences through different features. The study is based on a corpus of written French from literary and journalistic text sources. Syntactic, semantic and textual properties in the clauses are discussed. The analysis points to differences so, it has been noted, in each case, if one of the clauses is affirmative and the other negative and if in the second clause, the subject has not been repeated. Also, an analysis has been made on the ground of the tense, mode, phrase structure type, and thematic structure, taking into account, in each case, if the clauses are identical or different. Punctuation has been one of the properties considered. The final aim has been to eliminate gradually, based on the partition of properties, subordinate sentences, so that only the hard core of coordinate sentences remains. In this way, the coordination could be defined similarly as the phoneme is defined as a group of distinctive features. The quantitative analyses have led to the conclusion that the sentences which, from a semantic point of view, are interpreted as coordinating, contain the least of these differences, while the sentences which can be considered as subordinating present the most of these differences. The conditions of coordination are, in that sense, hierarchical, so that the syntactic constraints have to make room for semantic, textual and cognitive factors. It is interesting to notice that everyone has the ability to produce correct coordinating structures and recognize incorrect coordinating structures. This can be explained by the human ability to categorize which has been widely researched in the semantic of prototype. The study suggests that coordination and subordination could be considered as prototypical cognitive categories based on different linguistic and pragmatic features.

Procedural Meaning Explicatures in the Development of New Subordination Strategies in Romance

The sociocultural changes that led to the genesis of Romance languages widened the gap between oral and written patterns, which display different discoursive and linguistic devices. In early documents, discoursive implicatures connecting propositions were not generally codified, so that the reader should furnish the correct interpretation according to his own perception of real facts; which can still be attested in current oral utterances. Once Romance languages had undergone several levelling processes which concluded in the first standardizations, implicatures became explicatures and were syntactically codified by means of univocal new complex conjunctions. As a consequence of the emergence of these new subordination strategies, a freer distribution of the information conveyed by the utterances is allowed. The success of complex structural patterns ran alongside of the genesis of new narrative genres and the generalization of a learned rhetoric. Both facts are a spontaneous effect of new approaches to the act of reading. Ancient texts were written to be read to a wide audience, whereas those printed by the end of the XV th century were conceived to be read quietly, in a low voice, by a private reader. The goal of this paper is twofold, since we will show that: a) The development of new complex conjunctions through the history of Romance languages accommodates to four structural patterns that range from parataxis to hypotaxis. b) This development is a reflex of the well known grammaticalization path from discourse to syntax that implies the codification of discoursive strategies (Givón 2 1979, Sperber and Wilson 1986, Carston 1988, Grice 1989, Bach 1994, Blackemore 2002, among others]

L'obra filològica d'Antoni de Bastero i Lledó. Edició de la Història de la llengua catalana

S'estudia l'obra filològica d' Antoni de Bastero i Lledó (1675-1737), des d'una perspectiva de conjunt, per tal de concretar I'activitat d'aquest estudiós en els camps de la lingüística, la filologia o la crítica literària, i fer-ne una valoració adequada als coneixements actuals sobre I'exercici d'aquestes disciplines durant la primera meitat del segle XVIII. La tesi inclou un estudi biogràfic, absolutament necessari per establir moltes de les circumstancies vitals del canonge Bastero, que ens resultaven obscures i que són decisives per explicar el propi interès per la filologia, les relacions amb determinats cercles acadèmics, la datació aproximada dels diversos projectes iniciats, la interpretació correcta de la seva activitat. S'inclou, així mateix, un catàleg exhaustiu de tots els manuscrits conservats d'Antoni de Bastero i que tenen alguna relació amb el seu treball filològic. En total es tenen en compte 69 volums manuscrits, actualment escampats per diversos arxius i biblioteques de Barcelona i Girona, alguns dels quals eren fins ara desconeguts. D'aquests 69 volums, 48 contenen pròpiament obres de Bastero o altres materials publicables, i la resta són materials de treball. En conseqüència, l' obra filològica del canonge es pot concretar en: la producció d'una gramàtica italiana i d'una gramàtica francesa, en català, que va deixar inacabades; la realització de La Crusca provenzale, un magne diccionari etimològic i d'autoritats que recull una gran quantitat d'hipotètics provençalismes italians -només es va publicar el primer volum d'aquesta obra a Roma, l'any 1724, però n'he localitzat pràcticament tot el contingut; l'elaboració d'una extensa antologia de poesies trobadoresques, copiades amb gran rigor d'alguns còdexs de la Biblioteca Vaticana; el plantejament d'una Història de llengua catalana, que havia de ser una gran compilació dels mèrits i les excel·lències d'aquesta llengua -que l'autor identifica amb la provençal- i la seva literatura, i que es va poder desenvolupar nomes de forma parcial. Precisament, la part central de la tesi l'ocupa l'estudi particular i l'edició crítica de les parts redactades d'aquesta obra, que suposa la concreció de la particular percepció lingüística i literària que Bastero havia anat perfilant al llarg dels seus anys d'estudi. Es tracta d'una edició molt complexa, perquè l'obra ens ha arribat només en un esborrany, que presenta múltiples correccions i esmenes i evidencia diferents estadis redaccionals; els manuscrits inclouen, així mateix, nombrosos papers amb anotacions o fragments que, o no pertanyen al cos de l'obra, o bé s'han hagut de resituar en el lloc que els correspon. EI resultat és, tanmateix, un text prou coherent que comprèn quasi la totalitat del Llibre primer -sobre l'origen, el naixement i els diversos noms de la llengua, i sobre el nom de Catalunya- i un capítol del Llibre tercer -sobre la primitiva extensió del català per tot Espanya. EI més rellevant d'aquesta obra és el fet que s'hi basteix una original teoria sobre la formació de les diverses llengües romàniques que té el català com a eix central -proposa la identificació del català provençal amb la lingua romana dels documents alt medievals, en una operació que s'avança quasi cent anys a François Raynouard, que propugnava això mateix, referint-se nomes al provençal, amb un àmplia aprovació de la comunitat científica del seu temps. Destaquen també un excepcional rigor històric i documental, i una notable sensibilitat vers l'oralitat lingüística, que és objecte d'algunes anotacions ben interessants. Tanquen la tesi un seguit d'annexos documentals on es transcriuen diversos documents relacionats amb els aspectes tractats anteriorment.