Abstract

This article, embedded in the field of Philology —with an historical approach and a linguistic viewpoint— and in the history of the Spanish language, discusses the acceptability of the examples presented as copyist errors in two of the most renowned manuals in Spanish textual criticism, namely, Manual de crítica textual (1983, 2001) by Alberto Blecua, and La edición de textos (2011) by Miguel Ángel Pérez Priego (for Pérez Priego, see Arellano’s observations in his review, 1997). The analysis of the cases and their documentation from different sources —critical editions and metalinguistic works— enables the conclusion that several of the so-called errors in these manuals are in fact legitimate, historically-documented linguistic variations, although some of them being scarcely testified.

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to present the context in which the little known text of Pedro José Bermúdez de la Torre was written and in it to review the ideas of the Creole elite in the dedication to the Count of Monclova of the narrative poem Telémaco en la isla de Calipso (Telémaco) written by Pedro José Bermúdez de la Torre and Solier (c. 1690). This study aims to present how these ideas are exposed and if they show any kind of identification of Bermudez with the so called «creole affair».

Abstract

In this study we analyze the English translations of Ausiàs March already carried out (Terry, Conejero-Ribes-Keown, Wittlin and Archer), and we pay attention to the criteria and the solutions used. Here the emphasis is on those questions related to the lexicosemantic choice that determines the general strategy of the new translation into prose that the author of this study has carried out for IVITRA. The article is also concerned about the interaction between translation and the improvement of the knowledge of the original itself, as a consequence of translating it and having to understand it completely, even up to the point of proposing some amendments to the criticophylologic fixation.

Abstract

What is the aim today of talking about philology, either in absolute terms or related to other concepts such as linguistics or language sciences? On the one hand, it seems unfair to resort to metaphors that pair (traditional) philology and (textual) necrophilia. On the other hand, turning our back on the reality is not the appropriate response to current problems: a more applied training (in the professional field) is needed, and (in the scientific context) the frontiers should be pushed back, because the old ones are obsolete and in need of reappraisal. Faced with a past and a present that are inevitably imperfect, this article is a reflection on the chances of a future in which philology (in the classical sense) is accompanied by language and communication sciences. The reason for this situation and for this specific proposal is not simply to follow the fashion or to embrace modernity, as the winner of the debate with antiquity: the aim is to try to provide a fuller professional training (a less erudite one) and a more interdisciplinary, less localist area of study. The context of the article is provided by comment on a brief series of sociopolitical and cultural events in our setting, all of them previous to the elections to the Parliament of Catalonia in November 2006. Any analysis of events of this kind, even the most superficial, shows that philologists or linguists should not undervalue a critical competence which, in its turn, should be transmitted to students as one of the skills involved in the processes of teaching, learning and knowledge transfer. Instead of limiting itself to the fields of grammar and history of literature, an imaginative (not imaginary) philology need to be open to criticism and communication. If the natural epistemological context of philology (of any philology) is also that of communication, we should not object to the efforts to strengthen the lines of convergence rather than divergence and contrast. Can a philology without communication produce anything but unemployable professionals? A clever (indirect) answer: although we may only be a fully-fledged nation in the preamble (not in the text) we should try hard to rescue our philology from the twilight zone.

Abstract

Sound remains significantly underresearched as a form of communication, as a modality of experience, and as a resource for cultural expression and social interaction. This is in spite of the centrality of sound in most media and communicative practices, including face-to-face interaction and digital networks. Recent years, however, have witnessed a revitalized interest internationally in the area. This review revisits previous research on three sound prototypes – speech, music, and environmental soundscapes – which has mostly been undertaken in separate disciplines: rhetoric, philology, linguistics, classical musicology, popular music studies, architecture, discourse analysis, and more. The article, further, outlines the potential for more interdisciplinary research on sound as communication – as a source of meaning and as a resource for action. This potential is suggested by the diffusion of mobile media and the pervasiveness of communication in everyday contexts. At present, ordinary media users are in position, not only to receive, but also to send diverse forms of auditory, visual, as well as textual information. Users are becoming senders in new configurations of one-to-one, one-to-many, and, increasingly, many-to-many communication. Ubiquitous soundscapes and other mediascapes are even challenging received notions of what a ‘medium’ is and could be. In conclusion, the article suggests that the growing current interest in sound studies itself may be the product of a reconfigured media environment in which sound has come back in style.