Don Quijote y Sancho Panza en las veredas del lenguaje y la comunicación: La interrelación oralidad - escritura.

Date
2016
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
For the last four hundred years, since the publication of the two parts of El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, the representation and perception of the main characters of Cervantes’ novel, i. e., Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, have undergone a process of constant stereotyping by readers and critics. The first images that come to mind at the mere mention of their names are those of an avid book reader a tilter of windmills; and also that of an illiterate, humble, and simpleton peasant. Most scholars have polarized their personalities, representing them as opposites in a dualistic relationship, adding fodder, along the way, to the false dichotomy between orality and literacy. Contrary to this opinion, this research proposes a more human and ethical consideration of all the characters regardless of their origin, social and economic status, or level of education. Starting with the approximation of a working definition of the key concepts of orality and literacy, one of the objectives of this thesis is to indicate how a prejudice against the oral elements of language developed over centuries imposing an intense dichotomism on literary criticism which in time affected Cervantes’ studies. Taking into consideration the various conceptions of critics and scholars of orality and literacy, we will suggest an ampler model of interaction and symbiosis between these abstract traits of language. Assuming that the poetic goal of Miguel de Cervantes was that of verisimilitude, i. e., to imitate the actions and customs of Renaissance individuals in their everyday life, the novel is taken as an historic record valuable for sociolinguistic research and as the basic text for this project. Using the existing state of affairs in the Iberian Peninsula at the turn of the XVI century, as described in literary texts written during this period, this thesis focuses on the evidences of a conspicuous and ubiquitous orality.
Description
Keywords
Education--Language and Literature
Citation
Ayala Mejía, R. R. (2016). Don Quijote y Sancho Panza en las veredas del lenguaje y la comunicación: La interrelación oralidad - escritura. (Doctoral thesis, University of Calgary, Calgary, Canada). Retrieved from https://prism.ucalgary.ca. doi:10.11575/PRISM/25734