Verbal art and performance in Ch'orti' and Maya hieroglyphic writing

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dc.contributor.advisorStross, Brianen
dc.contributor.advisorGrube, Nikolaien
dc.creatorHull, Kerry Michaelen
dc.date.accessioned2008-08-28T21:30:30Zen
dc.date.accessioned2017-05-11T22:15:50Z
dc.date.available2008-08-28T21:30:30Zen
dc.date.available2017-05-11T22:15:50Z
dc.date.issued2003en
dc.descriptiontexten
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation project set out to accomplish five primary goals: 1) to document oral narratives and ritual speech, in actual performance whenever possible, 2) to establish genre types in Ch'orti' oral narratives to gain an understanding of the structuring methods and poetic imagery associated with each, 3) to ascertain the features and use of poetic discourse in ritual contexts, 4) to carry out a large-scale study on the verbal art of the Maya hieroglyphs to determine the function of rhetorical devices within this system, and 5) to do a comparative analysis of Ch'orti' and hieroglyphic poetics in order to see if residual elements—be they linguistic, poetic, or cultural—could be of use to scholars in understanding certain aspects of the hieroglyphic script. This final stage of the project synthesizes all the data collected from Ch'orti' and that found in the hieroglyphic texts in order to draw comparisons between their poetic form and content. The overall purpose of this research is to advance our understanding of Ch'orti' narrative genres, oral narrative poetic usage, hieroglyphic verbal art, and the relationship at the level of poetic discourse between Ch'orti' and the hieroglyphic inscriptions. I also investigate specific issues regarding the sociocultural context of poetics in the Classic period in terms of the notion of recitation literacy. I not only argue that many hieroglyphic inscriptions were performed orally, but also that this performance could have entailed poetic elaboration whose realization depended on the individual circumstances of the occasion. The poetics features built into many hieroglyphic texts are shown to be opportune moments of strategic emphasis in most cases. At times, however, there are certain texts whose poetic content is so dense as to suggest works of "literature" for the ancient Maya. At this stage in the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphic writing I argue that it is in the arena of poetics and performance that we can more fully grasp and comprehend the indexical semantics of glyphic texts.
dc.description.departmentAnthropologyen
dc.format.mediumelectronicen
dc.identifierb56832485en
dc.identifier.oclc56123278en
dc.identifier.proqst3119531en
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/2152/658en
dc.language.isoengen
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author. Presentation of this material on the Libraries' web site by University Libraries, The University of Texas at Austin was made possible under a limited license grant from the author who has retained all copyrights in the works.en
dc.subject.lcshChorti language--Discourse analysisen
dc.subject.lcshMayan languages--Discourse analysisen
dc.subject.lcshAnthropological linguisticsen
dc.subject.lcshComparative linguisticsen
dc.titleVerbal art and performance in Ch'orti' and Maya hieroglyphic writingen
dc.type.genreThesisen

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