Monod Becquelin Aurore

Biography

After studying classical literature, Aurore Monod Becquelin turned to linguistics and ethnology. Her first field study was conducted in the Brazilian Amazon, in the Upper Xingu region, a multi-ethnic and multilingual cultural area. She specialised the language and culture of the Trumai who were linguistically isolated, and published her doctoral thesis on the linguistic and mythological practices of these Indians. She then began a thorough examination of speech and the oral tradition, the contrast between traditional learning and recent school-based education, and the collective rituals of this region, an analysis that resulted in a book that dealt with the categories involved in the dynamics of multilingual and multicultural co-action.  In 1972, while continuing her research among the Trumai, she began a new field study in Mexico among the Tzeltal Mayans of Chiapas, in collaboration with archaeologists and ethnologists (the Tonina project). Her first texts dealt with rituals and their associated discourse. While researching the rhetorical and performance customs of Mayan speech, and making contributions to the study of parallelism, she analysed certain aspects of grammar – composition, the passive, ergativity – in collaboration with Mayanist colleagues.

Research Interest

ethnolinguistics, ethnology of speech, oral tradition, rhetoric, ethnosyntax