Doctoral Dissertation Research: 'Language and Performance in Quechua Missionization - Indian Peru, 1550-1650.'

University Of Chicago, Chicago IL

Investigators

Abstract

Abstract 0075898 This project in anthropological linguistics will investigate the implementation of a "Catholic Quechua" language as the principal medium of missionization in Spanish colonial Peru. It will examine the mechanisms through which the colonial regime defined and consolidated a standard missionary vernacular within the existing native languages, and how it reproduced Catholic genre frames (modes of religious discourse) in the Quechua language and among native Andeans. Linguistic and textual analysis will be integrated with the archival study of the history of missionary activity in Indian parishes. This project will contribute to our understanding of how missionization programs (like more recent efforts at language change linked to nationalism, globalization, and education) work to link local cultures into a global political sphere.