Language in combat : literary style as a response to cultural and political constraints in Franco's Catalonia

• Main Author: Detrell, Jordi Comella
• Published: Lancaster University 2006
• Subjects: 860
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.485111

This thesis explores the rewriting process of Incerta gloria (1956-1969-1971) by Joan Sales, El testament (1955-1963-1967) by Xavier Benguerel, Laia (1932-1934-1.952-1968) by Salvador Espriu and Tina Costa (1947-1968) by Sebastia Juan Arbo.· The study analyses the compositional and stylistic evolution of these novels from a pluralistic methodological approach that includes stylistics, socially oriented linguistics, sociology of literature and critical theory. The first part of this study analyses the Catalan .literary field of the post-war period, placing special emphasis on the ideological struggles for legitimate language between grammarians and writers. This part considers the social and political circumstances under which Arb6, Sales, Benguerel and Espriu decided to rewrite their novels and it also focuses on the perception of the Catalan language (using categories such as spoken/written language) by writers, grammarians and intellectuals. The second part explores the self-reflexivity on discourse that can be found in Incerta gloria, El testament, Laia and Tino Costa. This part explores the novels as historical agents of language, but also as being shaped by language. It describes the language of these texts by analysing its polyphonic qualities, paying special attention to the traces of struggle between socio-ideological discourses that can be found in the voices of narrators and characters. This research aims to demonstrate how the rewriting processes undertaken by Sales, Espriu, Benguerel and Arbo, the original aim of which was to update the linguistic properties of their prose, ultimately resulted in changes to the whole structure of their novels. . This thesis is my own work, and has not been submitted in substantially the same form for the award of a higher degree elsewhere.