The Stage directions as indicators of the causes of dramatic enunciation

Abstract

Stage directions are one of the most studied components of the dramatic text. However, there is currently no consensus regarding the linguistic attributes of these statements or their role in the meaning construction process. By using as framework the Dialogic Approach to Argumentation and Polyphony (Caldiz 2019; García Negroni 2019; 2021; García Negroni y Libenson 2018), this paper studies the semantic nature of the didascalias particulares (expressions written in brackets and attached to the character´s dialogue). In particular, this work analyzes those cases in which stage directions are involve in the display of causal indications: the instructions that every statement has about the reasons for its irruption. In order to explain their enunciative function, a group of stage directions from different theatrical aesthetics is taken as corpus (Albee [1962] 2000; Arlt [1938] 1993; Beckett [1952] 2013; Camus [1944] 2004; Casona [1943] 1985 y Miller [1949] 2013). It is intended to show that didascalias particulares on some occasions urge to recover a dialogic frame that is presented as the cause that triggers the enunciation of the character and justifies the properties that it has.