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| Author(s): |
Mauro Dela Bandera Arco Júnior
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Press: | São Paulo. |
| Institution: | Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) |
| Defense date: | 2013-02-22 |
| Examining board members: |
Maria das Gracas de Souza;
Evaldo Becker;
Franklin Leopoldo e Silva
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| Advisor: | Maria das Gracas de Souza |
| Abstract | |
The aim of this research is to analyze the language theory of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, as it is developed on the Essay on the Origin of Languages and in other texts and fragments concerning music and language. The study sought to investigate to what extent music is presented, throughout the Essay, as the paradigm according to which the history and the essence of language are thought. While applying the musical model to the linguistic phenomena, Rousseau conceives the value of language in its evocative and extra-representative force, produced by the successive chain of sounds, and not on the fact that the word is a conventional sign of something. Rousseau lifts up music while the articulator of his language conception and not as a binary theory of sign, as the Port-Royal thinkers do. This happens because the essence and the destiny of language, its force or impotence, are decided within a social organization. Every particular language has its constructions and developments written in its own historicity and marked by geographic and climatic aspects, which involves and establishes different models of sociability between men. In this sense, it is easy to notice that Rousseau stands out against the universality and the unhistorical character of reason that organizes the structure of languages, insofar the conditions of men in connection with their means of subsistence directly influence their mutual exchanges, and consequently the formation of languages. These influences take place, in the heart of each society, through a singular process that only becomes intelligible if referred to a complete analysis of a historical situation, to every constitutive elements of the way of life men have and, first and foremost, to the effective relations between men and nature. Thus, we can discern the ties that binds an essay on the origin of languages to the political and social sphere, and to which reason it is possible to conceive a history of liberty and enslavement of people, starting from an analysis of their languages. All of this is quite far from the contents developed on the works of Descartes and on those of the thinkers of Port-Royal. We will attempt, then, to recognise some of the singularities of the reflexions made by Rousseau about language and to draw up a decisive articulation, not dealt by X the cartesian conception of language.Thus, we intend to show what is new in the perspective brought by Rousseau in comparison with the classical thought, and, in this way, to indicate the precise place occupied by the Geneva philosopher, as far as the studies of language are concerned. (AU) | |
| FAPESP's process: | 10/03196-5 - The language and its mysteries in the work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau |
| Grantee: | Mauro Dela Bandera Arco Junior |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Master |