Personaje y lengua en La Celestina : Nuevas perspectivas de estudio

Abstract

Several previous studies about characters and language in La Celestina have drawn attention to a lack of verosimilitude since characters do not follow the classical precept of decorum, by which masters and servants could not speak with the same high style nor be the object of a similar tragic view. Following S. Gilman, who showed how characters' language is in fact adapted to each situation in LC, in this work I study three kinds of variation in LC dialogues: first, orality in the text, second, differences in the social dialect used by nobles and servants through epistemic markers and third, the register appropriate to situation in the asides. Finally, I reconsider the gap between language and characters as the consequence of the authors' attempt to «write the orality», in which there is a complex negotiation between linguistic and rhetorical devices.