Estructura retórica, recursos lingüísticos y función social del nqataGak (consejo toba)

Abstract

This paper explores the discursive production of the Toba people, who live in the Gran Chaco Region. It focuses on the study of (advice), a specific oral genre, by considering its formal characteristics, its semantic dominion, and its social importance. nqataGak constitutes one of the principal pedagogical tools in children's socialization process because they acquire a great deal of traditional knowledge through this type of discourse. Advice is also a highly productive genre which is currently used not only in the education of Toba youths, but also in politics and religion as a method of persuasion. In all cases, advice can constitute a powerful communicative resource in the construction of intersubjective or interethnic relations. In this way, advice plays a dramatic role in everyday working, social, and ritual life. This paper analyzes the following aspects, which converge and characterize nqataGak: the components of speech events (setting, participants' roles, topics, key, purposes, etc.), the rhetorical structure, and the lexical and morphosyntactic devices. From anthropological linguistics and related disciplines, such as communications ethnography and ethno-poetics, the purpose of this article is to contribute to the studies of the Toba discourse and to notional considerations of discourse in Native American oral traditions.