Revue Romane. Langue et littérature - Volume 56, Issue 2, 2021

Abstract

This article considers the Francophone literary canon based on a transnational reception study. It focuses on the circulation of French language literature within the Swedish academic system during the last thirty years. A longitudinal empirical study of bachelor and doctoral dissertations in French between 1986 and 2016 allows the author to examine the dynamics of canon formation and renewal, as well as the role of universities in this process, particularly in regard to the creation of a canon of Francophone literary works. In response to recent scholarly anthologies which have debated the Francophone canon, this study is able to confirm the existence of Francophone classics. Finally, it is argued that further reception studies focusing on areas outwith the Francophone literary system will be of prime importance if the question of the Francophone canon is to be fully assessed beyond the immediate context of the Hexagone.

Abstract

All the main characters in The Spirit of the Beehive show some type of connection with marginality and survival. They are either at the margins of social convention or survivors of harrowing particular historical events (Spanish Civil War). This connection reveals itself in a conspicuous and distinct fashion through the monster figure. This article intends to highlight the centrality of the concept of monstrosity in the film as well as emphasize the socio-political significance of these manifestations of the monster. It is, therefore, a reading of the monster figure in Erice’s film as a political and social agent both in the specific context at the outset of Franco’s dictatorship and in the more abstract context of the challenging of power structures.

Abstract

This paper investigates the formal and functional variation of the vocative in contemporary Spanish teenage talk. For this purpose, all vocative occurrences found in conversations between teenagers in the Corpus Oral de Madrid-2016 are analyzed. The vocative is known to be highly productive in Spanish teenage talk, on both formal and functional levels. First, we provide the inventory of vocative forms used by Madrilenian teenagers, examine their origin and describe their semantic-pragmatic features, with special attention for the nominal vocative expressions used as symbols of in-group identity. The second part disentangles the pragmatic-discursive functions assumed by these forms, by taking into account the vocative’s multifunctionality. Teenagers tend to use vocatives as a phatic mechanism which allows them to control the contact with their interlocutor(s).

Abstract

In this paper we return to the question of the use of te, the Italian personal pronoun, as subject instead of complement. According to scientific literature, the diffusion of te in substitution of tu as the subject of the clause is attributed to the spoken variety of language.

We aim at verifying this hypothesis and to further document the use of te as subject using existing corpora of both written and spoken language.

The research considers old and new issues (for example the diffusion of the coordinative phrase io e te instead of io e tu, on which see Blasco Ferrer, 1992) and intends to represent the phenomenon in quantitative and qualitative terms.

In the conclusions it is stated that the phenomenon, even better represented in the spoken versus the written, seems diachronically stable, and sensitive to diatopic factors. The most significant results of the current research consist in having evaluated the presence of the phenomenon separately in the different constructs in which it occurs, and in having identified other contexts of attestation.

Abstract

A long-lasting debate within creole studies concerns the scarcity of Spanish-based creoles and the theoretical implications this may have. However, there is no agreement as to how many genuinely Spanish-based creoles there are in the world, and identifying the size of that group can generate controversies. Papiamentu, for instance, is canonically classified as a Spanish-based creole, even though most scholars at present seem to agree its origins are Creole Portuguese. A Portuguese lineage has on various occasions and by various authors also been claimed for Chabacano (Philippine Creole Spanish) and Palenquero (spoken in Colombia). These creoles, too, were supposedly once Portuguese-based, only to subsequently be ‘relexified’ towards Spanish. This paper argues that there is little linguistic basis for that claim. Although both creoles do indeed seem to have received some Portuguese (Creole) input, we maintain that this input was limited and substratal in nature, and thus has no bearing on the classification (whether diachronic or synchronic) of the two creoles as truly Spanish-based.

Abstract

This paper intends to compare the functions of the Pluperfect in discourse from a comparative perspective, taking into account the use of this particular tense form in three different Romance languages, namely French, Italian and Spanish. In particular, it tries to elucidate in what way the Pluperfect contributes to the building and structuring of discourse segments or, to put it differently, how it helps to create coherent units of discourse and interacts with other units on a more comprehensive structural level. The analysis also focuses on the interplay of the Pluperfect with competing past tense forms, the perfective Simple Past and the Perfect. The account put forward in this article tries to present a unified analysis by resorting to the tense-in-discourse framework developed by Becker & Egetenmeyer (2018).

Abstract

The future tense in the Ibero-Romance languages swings between temporal and modal readings. Despite the fact that all the varieties of the Iberian Peninsula possess various strategies that compete with the morphological future, there is no consensus on pinpointing which alternative refers to each of the possible readings. The only thing all authors agree on is the current decline of the morphological future tense with temporal value. In this article, current dialect data of the Romance languages of the Iberian Peninsula have been collected with the aim of analysing the contemporary and oral usage of this verbal tense in order to verify whether it still maintains its temporal or modal uses, or whether, as the latest research points out, it has become an evidentiality strategy.

Resumen

En este trabajo analizamos la estructura interna y las propiedades semánticas del cuantificador complejo inespecífico del español algún que otro. Sostenemos que el que de algún que otro y sus variantes (algunos que otros, uno que otro, unos que otros) es una conjunción coordinante disyuntiva con interpretación inclusiva que introduce alternativas compatibles entre sí y expresa también, en combinación con otro, un significado de desconexión entre entidades que bloquea la interpretación de grupo y activa una lectura distributiva sobre eventos.

This article reviews Lecturas del cuerpo. Fisiognomía y literatura en la España áurea

This article reviews Perspectives on Language Structure and Language Change. Studies in honor of Henning Andersen

This article reviews Le paragraphe : entre phrases et texte