Persuasion and Emphatic Devices in Bartolomé Martínez’s <em>Memoria</em> (1862)

Abstract

The present paper deals with emphatic features occurring in a Spanish report on the state of natural water supply in the Spanish island of Gran Canaria published in 1862. The text reflects the author’s concerns with the irrigation infrastructures in this island. My main interest is related to the way the author expresses his caveats and his use of emphatic devices. This said, my main objective is to explore specific language uses that convey the expression of emphasis in earlier Spanish. The emphatic features used in Bartolomé Martínez’s text published in Boletín de la sociedad económica de amigos del país de Las Palmas de Gran Canaria of March 31, 1862, have been reportedly identified in reports as characteristic features of the scientific report in the XVIII and XIX centuries, and they might therefore be indicative of the authors’ stance concerning both their text and their potential audience. Conclusions will offer major findings dealing with the set of emphatic features deployed in this Spanish report.

Keywords

• emphatic language
• nineteenth-century
• modality
• evidentiality
• historical texts