COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF MORAL EXPRESSION PATTERNS IN PORTUGUESE AND CENTRAL EUROPEAN FOLKTALE TRADITION: AN EVOLUTIONARY APPROACH

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Publication . Silva, Sara Graça; Instituto de Estudos de Literatura e Tradição (IELT - NOVA FCSH)

When studying emotions and morality, this is the question everyone wants an answer for. However, this is also the question no one truly interested in knowing what they are should ever ask. There are just too many ins and outs. Trying to reduce either of these two concepts to a single definition is therefore reductive, misguided, and even harmful. Whilst categorising morality and emotion as “it” might appear to make things easier at a first glance, it is ultimately impossible. Just as individuals are composed of many layers, so do morality and emotion share multiple disciplinary standpoints, constraints and forms of significance, being incredibly fluid across time and space. A true grasp of this reciprocity can only be attained by a meaningful interchange of all of these paradigms.

2018Capítulo de livro

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Comparative phylogenetic analyses uncover the ancient roots of Indo-European folktales

Publication . Silva, Sara Graça; Tehrani, Jamshid; Instituto de Estudos de Literatura e Tradição (IELT - NOVA FCSH); Royal Society

Ancient population expansions and dispersals often leave enduring signatures in the cultural traditions of their descendants, as well as in their genes and languages. The international folktale record has long been regarded as a rich context in which to explore these legacies. To date, investigations in this area have been complicated by a lack of historical data and the impact of more recent waves of diffusion. In this study, we introduce new methods for tackling these problems by applying comparative phylogenetic methods and autologistic modelling to analyse the relationships between folktales, population histories and geographical distances in Indo-European-speaking societies. We find strong correlations between the distributions of a number of folktales and phylogenetic, but not spatial, associations among populations that are consistent with vertical processes of cultural inheritance. Moreover, we show that these oral traditions probably originated long before the emergence of the literary record, and find evidence that one tale (‘The Smith and the Devil’) can be traced back to the Bronze Age. On a broader level, the kinds of stories told in ancestral societies can provide important insights into their culture, furnishing new perspectives on linguistic, genetic and archaeological reconstructions of human prehistory.

2016Artigo científico

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Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia

Número da atribuição

SFRH/BPD/90433/2012