Processes of Discursive legitimation between allopathic and traditional: The case of Tlahuica in the State of Mexico

• Main Authors: Guadalupe Nancy Nava Gómez, Rosa María Alemán Martínez
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad del Valle 2020-07-01
• Series: Lenguaje
• Subjects: logical codes; social codes; language maintenance; linguistic revitalization
• Online Access: https://revistalenguaje.univalle.edu.co/index.php/lenguaje/article/view/8580/12621

The article addresses processes of discursive legitimation of traditional and allopathic medicine practices from a linguistic anthropology framework. The main purpose of the study is to identify the rationale underlying these two modes of human experience: The objective-intellectual and the subjective-affective. This, with the aims of 1) re-evaluating traditional medicine through the reconstruction of its legitimation processes, 2) revitalizing knowledge associated with traditional medicine in Mexico. In methodological terms, the study involves a semiotic analysis based on the theory of the production of signs, and a comparison of the structure and the relational systems of both logical and social codes. Results show that by tracing the legitimation processes of traditional medicine, groups in the process of recovering ancestral practices gain visibility which, in turn, works as support to highlight the need of revitalization and maintenance of Mexican indigenous languages.