Cartographies of Languages: Glossaries for books of literature

Abstract

With this article we aim to contribute to the understanding of how glossaries function. In this work we consider glossaries produced for books of literature and we use the History of Linguistic Ideas in conjunction with Discourse Analysis as theoretical support. This article is a reflection on glossaries for books of literature, focusing on those produced from the position of the writer and which show some of the writers marks.It is proposed that these glossaries work as meta-linguistic texts, that they influence the author’s writing, and that they also work as an additional commentary about language which writing never run’s out. Next, differences between the production of glossaries created from the position of the writer and from the position of the editor are shown, highlighting the way the two types of glossaries function. To elaborate on the second type of glossary, four books written in the Portuguese language by an African writer are analyzed. Some of the conclusions reached here are: although they are based on the illusion of making the text clearer, glossaries contain a position on language that reveals tensions in the language. Furthermore, it is possible to understand them as an instrument of grammatization of the Portuguese language in African countries as well as an instrument of grammatization of African languages in African territory.