25.1141, Review: Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics: Greu=?UTF-8?Q?=C3=9Flich_?=(2012)

[linguist at linguistlist.org]

LINGUIST List: Vol-25-1141. Fri Mar 07 2014. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 25.1141, Review: Discourse Analysis; Historical Linguistics: Greußlich (2012)

Fund Drive 2014
http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2014/

Moderators: Damir Cavar, Eastern Michigan U <damir at linguistlist.org>

Reviews: Monica Macaulay, U of Wisconsin Madison
Rajiv Rao, U of Wisconsin Madison
Joseph Salmons, U of Wisconsin Madison
Mateja Schuck, U of Wisconsin Madison
Anja Wanner, U of Wisconsin Madison
       <reviews at linguistlist.org>

Homepage: http://linguistlist.org

Do you want to donate to LINGUIST without spending an extra penny? Bookmark
the Amazon link for your country below; then use it whenever you buy from
Amazon!

USA: http://www.amazon.com/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-20
Britain: http://www.amazon.co.uk/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-21
Germany: http://www.amazon.de/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistd-21
Japan: http://www.amazon.co.jp/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlist-22
Canada: http://www.amazon.ca/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistc-20
France: http://www.amazon.fr/?_encoding=UTF8&tag=linguistlistf-21

For more information on the LINGUIST Amazon store please visit our
FAQ at http://linguistlist.org/amazon-faq.cfm.

Editor for this issue: Monica Macaulay <monica at linguistlist.org>
================================================================  

Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/
					
					

Date: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 07:37:04
From: Mariana España Rivera [marianaespana at yahoo.es]
Subject: Text, Autor und Wissen in der 'historiografía indiana' der Frühen Neuzeit

E-mail this message to a friend:
http://linguistlist.org/issues/emailmessage/verification.cfm?iss=25-1141.html&submissionid=19451229&topicid=9&msgnumber=1
 
Discuss this message: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/reviews/get-review.cfm?subid=19451229


Book announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/23/23-4941.html

AUTHOR: Sebastian  Greußlich
TITLE: Text, Autor und Wissen in der 'historiografía indiana' der Frühen Neuzeit [Text, Author, and Knowledge in the "Historiografía Indiana" of the Early Modern Era]
SUBTITLE: Die Décadas von Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas
SERIES TITLE: De Gruyter Pluralisierung & Autorität 33
PUBLISHER: De Gruyter Mouton
YEAR: 2012

REVIEWER: Mariana España Rivera, Universität Bonn

SUMMARY

Sebastian Greußlich offers a historically-oriented linguistic and textual
analysis of the “Historia general de los hechos de los Castellanos en las
islas i tierra-firme del mar oceano” (“History of the Castilian people on the
island and on the mainland”; also called “Décadas”), written by Antonio de
Herrera y Tordesillas, a court chronicler (Cuellar, 1549--Madrid, 1625).

This historiographical work consists of eight 'Décadas', or books, published
in Madrid between 1601 and 1615 during the reign of Philip III. The work was
intended as a source of information for the king and his court. The 'Décadas'
deal with the history of the New World ('las Indias Occidentales') from the
time of its discovery in 1492, to 1554. Originally written in Spanish, it was
so successful that shortly after its publication it was translated into Latin
(Amsterdam, 1622) as well as into other European languages: French (Amsterdam,
1622), German (Frankfurt, 1623), Dutch (1706), and English (London, 1724).

As the main source for his study, Herrera used material and information from
other authors' works. He selected, ordered and/or linguistically adapted it --
lexically, morphologically or syntactically -- utilising his own system.
Quoting or even taking long passages from other authors was a common
historiographical practice that lost favour with the advent of positivist
science and lost its validity with the birth of modern historical science in
the 19th century. Thus, in the compiling/preparation of this extensive work,
Herrera followed a discourse tradition of his time.

Greußlich’s intention is to address certain questions that have until now not
been adequately answered; for example, the question of just how many
historical references Herrera took from other authors and what criteria he
used to make his decisions. Greußlich's starting point is the reconstruction
of what Herrera's historical knowledge might have been. In a “hermeneutical
approach to the pragmatics of a discourse tradition” (p. 10), the author
brings together two perspectives, the textual and the epistemological. His
linguistic analysis results in a qualitative reconstruction of Herrera's
historiographical practices.

The book is divided into an introduction, seven chapters, an index and
bibliographical references.

Chapter 1 is a four-page “Introduction”. The author explains that his
linguistic analysis is carried out on a corpus that is comprised of two
components: on the one hand, he examines sections from the 'Décadas' that deal
with events in the Viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, while on the other
hand, those sections are compared with Herrera's sources.

Chapter 2 is entitled “Historical linguistics, historiography and the
textuality of history”. In essence, the chapter deals with the
“problematization of historical tradition” (p. 4) and focuses on a
postmodernist debate around the interrelation between historicity (of texts)
and textuality (of history). It also provides us with information about the
methodological orientation of the work.

The author argues that the present work is “basically oriented towards
variationist linguistics” (p. 8). He explains its theoretical
background/framework using Coseriu's “three-level schema”:

Universal level:  Speech activity 
Historical level:  Concrete language / discourse tradition (abstract language)
Individual level:  Discourse/Text
(quoted from Oesterreicher, 2009a; in Greußlich, p. 9; Oesterreicher 2005, p.
9)

The model helps us distinguish between questions that relate to a “concrete
particular language from those questioning the language at its universal
level” and to differentiate “linguistically relevant from non-linguistically
relevant issues” (p. 9). Thus, a variationist perspective allows us to
“exactly historically contextualize a discourse tradition” (p. 10).

The “recontextualization” (or the “hermeneutical reconstruction of the
pragmatics of the discourse tradition”, p. 10) makes up the major part of this
work (Chapter 3: 83 pages; Chapter 4: 104 pages). Greußlich justifies this by
explaining that it is necessary “in order to communicate the relevant research
from history and historical law within linguistics” (p. 11). This is the task
the author takes on here, while also stating that “hardly any of the discussed
evidence is new of itself” (p. 10).
  
Chapter 3 is entitled “The functionalization of the 'official historiography'
in early modern Castile”. In this chapter the author summarizes the main
findings from the historical North American research in order to contextualize
the status of the 'Décadas'. He comments on the resulting paradigms and
findings so that the reader is informed about the valid arguments that
grounded historical knowledge of that period.

For example, he writes about the “political and religious organizations and
their institutionalization in Castile and the New World” (section 3.2.1),
about the “Council of Indies” (“Consejo de Indias”) and the “Audiencias” as
discourse regulators (section 3.3) and presents the “Major Chronicle of the
Indies” as an early modern institution (section 3.4 “Die 'Crónica Mayor de
Indias - ein frühneuzeitliches Fachreferat”, p. 107).

Chapter 4, “Texts and authors”, presents the authors that Herrera used as his
source material. This chapter is divided into 12 parts and each one is
dedicated to an individual author. These include: Francisco de Xerez, Gonzalo
Fernández de Oviedo, Bartolomé de las Casas, Pedro Cieza de León, Pascual de
Andagoya, Francisco López de Gómara, Diego de Landa, Bernal Díaz del Castillo,
Diego Fernández de Palencia, Francisco Cervantes de Salazar, and José de
Acosta. Part 4.12 deals with the works of anonymous authors and marginal
texts.

For the analysis, the structure of the texts (“Textgestalt”, p. 131) as well
as the context of the authors' personal lives (“Autorfigur”, p. 131) are both
of equal importance: the text because it had to fulfil certain formal criteria
in order to be accepted into the royal archive and the authors' lives because
through their oeuvre they established themselves as loyal servants, and also
in order to integrate themselves into the colonial administrative system. Each
author had a different role to play and participated differently
(“Partizipationsmodi”, p. 132). Greußlich focuses on the relationship between
norms at the institutional level and the personal/individual practical level.

After reconstructing Herrera's point of departure Greußlich presents each
author chronologically instead of sorting them by textual typology. This
allows him to follow up “the concrete institutional conditions for each and
every case” (footnote 415, p. 133). At the same time, this allows the reader
to understand the criteria determining Herrera’s choice of source material.

Chapter 5 is called “Antonio de Herrera and the ‘History of the Castilian
people on the island and on the mainland’ -- the textuality of history and its
interpretation”.

Some of the results from the qualitative reconstruction of Herrera's
historiographical practice are as follows: The work is structured
(macro-structure) along the same lines as works of previous chroniclers --
such as Pedro Mártir de Anglería and Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo. These
authors from the 16th century followed a humanistic tradition, and remained in
the genre “of their contemporaries and their position went unquestioned” (p.
259). Greußlich recognizes the fact that Herrera one hundred years later
likewise followed this tradition as a sign of the “legal relevance of
historiography in the context of the imperial expansion of Castile” (p. 259).

The linguistic-discursive structure of the 'Décadas' reflects the
administrative division of the space which replicates the historical progress
of the conquests. Herrera reports on events from the stages “discovery”,
“conquest” and “submission” (“Pacificación”). From a legal perspective this
organization is a projection of the “dependency of these territories on the
Crown of Castile” (p. 260). The consistent chronological arrangement of the
'Décadas' emphasizes the relevance of the work as a reference book for the
policy-makers because this system made it possible for the reader “to quickly
find the most relevant material for them” (p. 261).

Herrera worked through only a fraction of the historical archive that was
available to him. However, his selection of reference texts follows clear
rules that correlated ''with the historical and institutional settings'' (p.
281). The chapters dedicated to New Spain and Peru are both structured in the
same way with respect to the compiled corpora, the distribution of the sources
following the pattern: ''Descubrimiento - Conquista - Pacificación''. For each
of these geographical regions Herrera considered several texts. He grouped
different text types together to form their own sections, but did not mix them
up. Herrera chose to use ''historias'' and ''crónicas'' as well as
''relaciones geográficas'' and ''documentos jurídicos'' (“juridical texts”, p.
279), which represented an innovation in historiographical practice. Greußlich
finds his discourse is based on authoritative criteria with the exception of
the juridical text types that appear relatively anonymous and
professionalized. With regard to the time-frame of Herrera's 'sources' there
is a clear and pronounced progression from the oral to the written.

With regard to the thematic level Herrera manages to use his sources in a
practical way that leads us to think that he probably had a ''clear concept of
the changing requirements [...] which historiography in Castile was confronted
by during the 16th century'' (p. 280) and ''the urgent need to conceptually
bind the alterity of the 'Indies' in order to enable them to rule there ...''
(p. 279). Consequently, he meticulously seeks to fulfil what Greußlich calls
“these primary legal expectations” (p. 280).

In chapter 6, ''Linguistic Text Analysis'', Greußlich analyses the ‘Décadas’
in relation to their source texts. He offers a systematic description of the
“discourse transformation” (''Transformaciones discursivas'', p. 288), with
the aim of ''characterising the quality of difference inherent in linguistic
contextualization'' (p. 300). The analysis is performed at the following
levels: macro-structural (i.e. the relationship between the macro-structure of
a 'source' with the respective parallel passage in the 'Décadas'),
incorporating syntax, morphosyntax, morphology and lexicon.

Herrera uses 'estilo llano' ('plain language') for his historiography, which
is ''a norm-referenced standard that requires a moderate level of literacy''
(p. 290). Herrera's style is characterized by his avoidance of features of
orality (close to spoken language), by which, according to Greußlich, he aims
to liberate the discourse of “complexity-increasing redundancy of all kinds”
(p. 290) on the levels of syntax, morphology and lexis. At the
macro-structural level, he endeavours to eliminate what he considers to be
inappropriate or unnecessary parts of the text. Herrera’s adaptations are
based upon the content itself.

Chapter 7 is called ''The linguistic regularities in the compilation of the
'Décadas.''' In the context of the 'historiografia indiana' Herrera
establishes the 'estilo llano' as the standard. Greußlich adds, “However,
Herrera did not succeed in establishing a stable tradition, as he only managed
to produce an individual relevancy of the 'estilo llano' for the
historiographical discourse in Castile” (p. 356).

EVALUATION

The term 'historiografia indiana' describes a diverse and complex subject.
>From the diversity of authors, works and periods Greußlich focuses on the
special case of an official chronicler of the early 17th century, who writes
about the events of the 16th century, compiling reports from the works of
other authors. The post of official chronicler in the 17th century was a very
desirable position and the future chronicler, besides having to have
influential recommendations, also had to be able to demonstrate excellent
linguistic skills in order to gain the favour of the King and be selected for
the post (García Hernán 2006, p. 126, 132 et seq.).

In his work Greußlich provides the reader with a wide range of information and
historical facts. He comments on these in his own voice, but his main
intention remains to highlight, ''the political and legal tendencies of the
16th century'' (p. 87) in order to reveal the context of the
institutionalization of the 'historiografia indiana'. The 17th century is not
addressed in detail, as is exemplified by the next sentence: ''At the
beginning of 17th century, when the 'Décadas' were first published, this
process of degeneration of the [economic and political] system was in full
swing'' (p. 87). Given that the 'Décadas' is a defining work from the 17th
century, the author leaves us somewhat disappointed because he omits the
historical, political and economic dimensions of the 17th century (cf.
González Enciso 1986, pp. 153-155).

Some of Greußlich’s conclusions about known historical facts may mislead the
reader. For example, in chapter 5 Greußlich raises the question ''why did
Mártir de Anglería, a native of Arona, Piemont [Italy], write in Latin?'',
given the fact that ''in Castile from the Middle Ages there was a
well-established tradition of writing historiography in the native language.''
He answers the question: ''A probable answer is that the author's origin is
the reason'' (p. 259, footnote 738). However, the book by Mártir de Anglería,
also called 'Décadas', stems from daily reports and lengthy letters that were
addressed to the Pope and his court. That is, the 'Décadas' by Pedro Mártir de
Anglería were written contextually in a completely different historiographical
tradition, and not in the way that Greußlich suggests (O'Gorman, 1972, p. 13;
Salas, 1959, p. 25).

The formal and stylistic linguistic adaptations that Greußlich highlights in
his linguistic analysis notes confirm the connotations of the term 'Cronista
oficial': a language variety characterized by certain features of literacy as
markers. He formulates his interpretations using a specific knowledge
framework which he imposes upon Herrera in order to evaluate the linguistic
adaptations.

Greußlich achieves a consistency in his analysis by projecting an ''identity
of reference'' (p. 300) which he assumes Herrera had in mind while he was
compiling his source material. In explaining the methodological orientation in
detail, Greußlich overwhelms the reader by adding new aspects to each chapter
that have little or no relevance to his analysis (e.g., 'spatial turn', p.
263). His analysis sometimes lacks structure, so that the ''synchronization''
between source materials and historical background is cumbersome and results
in the reader not always being aware of what the author intends.

This is illustrated by example 17 (p. 311) where Herrera removes 'mañas' from
Las Casas's ''segunsus 'astucias' y 'mañas''', giving ''segun sus
'astucias.''' Greußlich explains this lexical cut of 'maña' first by
interpreting the word based upon its current meaning. He then goes on to
discuss whether this word has a positive or negative meaning: ''The removal of
this positively connoted synonym suggests that Herrera is keen to characterize
the behaviour of Cortés as clearly disobedient'' (p. 312). However Greußlich
later adds that the lemma 'astucia' in documents of the era (Corpus del
Español diacrónico) often has positive connotations too ''in connection with
the representation of relevant military facts [...]” (p. 312, footnote 821),
and this leaves the reader a little confused.

Greußlich recognizes that another problematic area is that these results
provide qualitative rather than quantitative data (p. 294). Consequently, his
interpretation occasionally suffers from a subjective slant (p. 342) and
hardly ever goes beyond a description of Herrera's personal language style.
Greußlich would like to provide material for ''interdisciplinary debates'' (p.
2), but because his work remains descriptive, it may not be as useful to other
academics in other fields as a quantitative study might be. In order to
overcome this problem it would be desirable to compare his results with those
of other contemporary chroniclers from the time of Herrera, to support a
possible interpretation.

At first sight the book’s title seems to offer the reader an interesting and
insightful treatise, but unfortunately the book does not live up to this
initial impression. The reader is confronted by Greußlich's academic German
writing style and has to struggle to make sense of what the author really
wants to convey. The author also breaks with academic tradition when
evaluating the work of other academics, for example by describing Carbia as a
''fascist'' (p. 237) and Bosch García as being ''no less tendentious'' (p.
236). He also praises his own linguistic theoretical framework and says he
attempts to avoid ''destructive misunderstandings'' of others (p. 9). These
subjective biases come across as unnecessarily defensive and may confuse the
reader.

Admittedly, Greußlich's subject matter is broad and covers a variety of themes
but unfortunately this is at the expense of structure and conciseness. The
book's reader-friendliness is often hindered by quotations and cross
references. This gives the impression that the author has not been able to
precisely delimit the theme and find a straightforward path for his argument.

REFERENCES

Bosch García, Carlos. 1945. La conquista de la Nueva España en las Décadas de
Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. In Díaz Thomé, Hugo (Hg.). “Estudios de
historiografía de la Nueva España”. México: El Colegio de México, 145-202.

García Hernán, Enrique. 2006. La España de los cronistas reales en los siglos
XVI y XVII. In “Norba. Revista de Historia”, Vol. 19, 125-150.

González Enciso, Agustín. 1986. La economía. In Andrés-Gallego, José (Coord.).
“Historia General de España y América. La crisis de la hegemonía española.
Siglo XVII”. Tomo VIII. Madrid: Rialp. 153-185.

Oesterreicher, Wulf. 2005. Über die Geschichtlichkeit der Sprache. In Trabant,
Jürgen (Hg.) “Sprache der Geschichte”. (Schriften des Historischen Kollegs.
Kolloquien 62.) 3-26. München: R. Oldenbourg.

O'Gorman, Edmundo. 1972. “Cuatro historiadores de Indias. Siglo XVI. México:
Conaculta.

Salas, Alberto Mario. 1959. Tres cronistas de Indias. Pedro Mártir de
Anglería; Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo; Fray Bartolomé de las Casas. México:
FCE.


ABOUT THE REVIEWER

Mariana España is a lecturer at the Department of Romance Languages and
Literatures at the University of Bonn. She earned a M.A. in Romance
Linguistics, Musicology and European and Latin American Art History from the
University of Heidelberg. Her teaching and research interests include Spanish
as a Second Language, German-Spanish Translation, Historical Linguistics and
Latin American Cultural Studies. She teaches both undergraduate and
postgraduate courses.








------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Year the LINGUIST List hopes to raise $75,000. This money will go to help keep the List running by supporting all of our Student Editors for the coming year.

See below for donation instructions, and don't forget to check out Fund Drive 2014 site!

http://linguistlist.org/fund-drive/2014/

There are many ways to donate to LINGUIST!

You can donate right now using our secure credit card form at https://linguistlist.org/donation/donate/donate1.cfm

Alternatively you can also pledge right now and pay later. To do so, go to: https://linguistlist.org/donation/pledge/pledge1.cfm

For all information on donating and pledging, including information on how to donate by check, money order, PayPal or wire transfer, please visit: http://linguistlist.org/donation/

The LINGUIST List is under the umbrella of Eastern Michigan University and as such can receive donations through the EMU Foundation, which is a registered 501(c) Non Profit organization. Our Federal Tax number is 38-6005986. These donations can be offset against your federal and sometimes your state tax return (U.S. tax payers only). For more information visit the IRS Web-Site, or contact your financial advisor.

Many companies also offer a gift matching program, such that they will match any gift you make to a non-profit organization. Normally this entails your contacting your human resources department and sending us a form that the EMU Foundation fills in and returns to your employer. This is generally a simple administrative procedure that doubles the value of your gift to LINGUIST, without costing you an extra penny. Please take a moment to check if your company operates such a program.

Thank you very much for your support of LINGUIST!
 


----------------------------------------------------------
LINGUIST List: Vol-25-1141	
----------------------------------------------------------
Visit LL's Multitree project for over 1000 trees dynamically generated
from scholarly hypotheses about language relationships:
          http://multitree.linguistlist.org/