Rituales relacionales en cartas ecuato-colombianas de los siglos XVIII y XIX

Abstract

This paper is inserted in the theoretical perspective of the relational pragmatics. When analyzing the interactions, this approach considers the relevant role of the so-called "relational ritual practices" (Kádár 2010, 2013). From this point of view, it is considered that ritual is an essential part of relational everyday life and that in discourse it is manifested through certain relational expressions that are repeated in different socially conventionalized communicative situations. One of the most ritualized discourses is the one used in the interaction through letters, hence the proposal is the analysis of the pragmatic value of certain ritualized relational expressions present in a corpus of “letters of naturalization” written in the Ecuadorian-Colombian area during the 18th and 19th centuries. The writers of these letters constitute a relational network because they are people united by the same purpose within a specific historical and social context, who use similar strategies when communicating with each other (Milroy / Milroy 1992:2, quoted by Kádár 2013:3).