Análisis discursivo de las cédulas de los expósitos del Hospicio de Oviedo (1752‒1782)

Abstract

Abstract The Oviedo Hospital was the main charity in charge of caring for foundlings in Asturias (Spain) between the 18th and the 20th century. Sometimes these children carried an identity card or document with them containing several pieces of information, such as their name or the confirmation of baptism. These were copied into the hospital register books (‘Foundling Records’). The identity cards are characterized by the repetition of a basic informative scheme and certain linguistic elements located in the area of ‘language of immediacy’. Taking this into account, the aim of this paper is to examine from the perspective of discourse analysis a corpus composed of 1.117 identity cards collected between 1752 and 1782 to determine if these documents are able to constitute by themselves a specific discursive tradition.