Abstract

AGUIAR, Micaela. Non-verbal and paraverbal mechanisms in the construction of ethos on the novel The Stranger by Albert Camus. Diacrítica [online]. 2014, vol.28, n.1, pp.377-405. ISSN 0807-8967.

Based on the concept of ethos, as proposed by Discourse Analysis theoretical framework, we have examined the ethos (or image of self) production of Albert Camus The Stranger’s main character. We have specifically focused on the correlation between the nonverbal and para-verbal elements and the discursive mechanisms, namely, how they simultaneously contributed, through the course of the hero’s mother’s funeral, to the production of a hetero-attributed dysphoric image of the main character. Thus we have identified and analyzed several nonverbal communication mechanisms, such as eye contact, silence, prosody and proxemics. We have concluded that these mechanisms suggest a movement of distancing, both physically and emotionally, which results from the clash between the main character’s two competing images: the stereotypical image of a son in grief and the negative ethos produced through his discursive interaction.

Keywords : discursive ethos; pre-discursive ethos; nonverbal communication; literary discourse; stereotype; doxa.

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