El uso del acento para definir personajes en la animación. Un estudio sociolingüístico de la relación entre acento y personaje en cinco largometrajes de dibujos animados de Cuba

Abstract

The thesis investigates from a sociolinguistic perspective the use of accent as a tool for building characters in five Cuban cartoon movies. As other similar studies on the field (Androutsopoulos; Lippi-Green; Dobrow & Gidney; Sønnesyn), it claims that the accent potentially gives information about a character or certain character types, as accent is a device loaded with attitudes. This means that some accents will more frequently be used by for example the heroes than the villains. The five films studied are the full-length films made about the legend of Elpidio Valdés and legend of the Vampires in Havana. These two legends are the most successful cartoons produced by the Cuban Institute of Cinematic Art and Industry (ICAIC) and are therefore considered having certain cultural value in Cuba. The method used is a combination of a linguistic and social contextual analysis. With a repertoire analysis of the characters it is detected that the films show a great variation of different accents; what the thesis arguments is related to a variated language ideology. This means that the object of the investigation differs from other films studied, as for examples Disney movies that are considered promoting a standard language ideology where the far most used accent is a standard accent. However, it must be mentioned that the films studied in this thesis use mostly accents that are close to the accent spoking in the capital of Cuba. With a closer look at the accent used by the heroes, the thesis finds out that both films use the accent to characterize the heroes as non-typical heroes. It also finds out that female characters are underrepresented compared to male characters, though they don’t show less language variation. Considering social contextual factors, it is argued that the way accent is used is highly related to the fact that Cuban cinema is produced for an artistic proposal, not commercial, and made for a national audience; the Cubans.