Etnolinguistics Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

The history of growing vines in Bages goes back a long way , and while there have been spectacular booms , there have also been important slumps. All in all, the future implies a modernization which will break with a thousand year old... more

The history of growing vines in Bages goes back a long way , and while there have been spectacular booms , there have also been important slumps. All in all, the future implies a modernization which will break with a thousand year old tradition and the use of a new vocabulary which implicitly threatens the existing one ,associated with a way and vision of life. This way and vision of life is the basis and object of study of the thesis.
The results obtained can be extrapolated to a geographical area much larger than the area of D.O. Plain of Bages. For this reason , this dictionary would modestly like to be added to the Romanesque linguistic studies on the world of vines and wine, due to the fact that after having checked the lexical ,specific and general content of the bibliography,it can be seen that almost 25% of the lexis gathered does not appear in any of them.
Our basis is direct communication with people that still conserve traditional know-how that comes of several generations of experience. At the same time we mix this ancestral knowledge with that of various cultural sources, thus the ethnolinguistic converges with other disciplines.
The main defining characteristic of this dictionary is its multiple forms . In this sense, a small methodological contribution has been linked to the ethnolinguistic one ,especially in the use of new technology in this type of study, both for the method of collection ( use of voice recorder, video and digital photography) and also the graphic and especially audiovisual forms which allow a much higher degree of accuracy ( use of scanner, computer programmes of photography, sound and database ) .The fact that one is able to see a fixed or moving image and also listen to the voice of the interviewee live with the accuracy that modern digital means offer, allows us to grasp directly the range of the linguistic content , and especially , place it in time alongside the information found in a traditional dictionary ( entry, definition, etymology, synonyms, translation, phonetic transcription or sayings and proverbs ) . In this way, this project does not exhaust all the possibilities of study in itself : it is a collection of diverse material , classified according to specific criteria , but which can be viewed, checked, reclassified and studied from innumerable points of view.
We can not stress enough the importance and wealth of popular wisdom and collective memory . Nor should we forget the need to pass them on to future generations. Hence this study which tries to bring us closer to the culture of vines and wine (morphology of vine, types of vine and grapes, illnesses and plagues, vegetables and animals associated with vines, wines and derivatives) as well as the traditional country world in general (tools and machines, receptacles, jobs ,attire for animals , buildings, legal terms, measures, weather, beliefs and traditions )in a way which can be easily understood, and which avoids the pitfalls of academia. Thus, a kind of bridge has been built between scientific and popular knowledge with the intention of bringing them closer together and making them more accessible, especially to the younger generations by offering a register of the memory of these two hundred wise men and women from Bages, our godparents in age and experience, who one day from these pages will be able to speak to us again, guide us and remind us of who we are and where we are going.