Da oralidade à sistematização da escrita: um estudo dos primórdios da comunicação no Japão

Abstract

There's an extensive bibliography that analyzes the early Japanese culture and the import from China of various knowledge systems related to language, religion, esthetics, medicine and so forth. In regard to the transition from orality to writing, specifically, there are studies in the field of linguistics that analyse in detail the development of the different spellings in Japan, including those concerning the absorption of Chinese characters. The purpose of this thesis is to change the focus on this issue, studying the birth of writing in Japan under the light of communication theories. In this sense, the transition from the development of language in the so-called primary media (the body) to secondary media (paper, stone, cloth etc.) is investigated as singular ways of organization of signal systems and objective universes. One of the concepts employed to deepen this issue is the Umwelt, created around eighty years ago by the German Jakob Von Uexküll. By means of studies of body communication (of humans and that of other animals~ and also of the connections with the environment, the Umwelt allows the analysis of the socalled "subjective worlds', which are complex texts where information's about nature and culture intertwine their fields in continuous flows. The thesis also presents a historical overview of the most important issues concerning language and culture as it explains what changes when a certain duality that has been distinctive of the Japanese studies is set aside, emphasizing the antagonism between Japan and the western world. Far from putting aside singularities, the author's purpose is to observe the occurrence of the different adaptive solutions that have been developed by a people that support - like all of us, as a matter of fact - their dreams and needs with symbolic systems in order to survive