Actitudes explícitas ante el resalte gráfico en la tradición discursiva periodística española de los siglos XVIII y XIX

Abstract

With the development of the movable-type printing press, the inclination of letters went from having a general format (only books with a specific content were composed) to being indicative of alienation within the text, where the highlighted word would respond to the needs of the author, editor or typesetter who wished to distance them from the ideas or expressions hidden behind the inclined letter. With this work we want to acknowledge the enormous descriptive potential that this typographic element offersfor the analysis of language attitudes in a specific period of the history of Spanish, since the use of this highlighting could reveal on many occasions declarations conceived as non-normative, or explicit rejections of expressions that attack the purity of the language. After considering the methodological contributions of historical sociolinguistics and that which can be labelled "discursive traditions", we have proceeded to delimit the uses of italics according to explicit displays which appeared in the Spanish press of the 18th and 19th centuries. This examination is conceived as a first step in the investigation of typographical highlighting in journalistic texts, since it is the authors themselves who determine when and why the letter is inclined in print. It is then up to the researcher—depending on the format and textual type—to find the attitudes that have led the author, editor or typesetter to modify the silhouette of the letter.