Definition[1]: The heuristic category of “discursive form” offers a methodological research strategy. In order to observe its utility and viability, as well as its limits and problems, this approach will have to be further put into practice.
This category refers to an artifact in which semantics materialize in a specific way, and whose regularity allows an identity recognition throughout multiple cultural settings.
In other words, every form must fulfill a “selective” function of contents that allow it to guide the reader’s expectations.
Nevertheless, this function is fulfilled in relation to other simultaneous forms from which it will distinguish itself – a network of forms-, that may survive through time adapting to historical transformations, or disappear. It is important to mention that a discursive form must not necessarily be printed; however, in this work we exclusively refer to “printed texts” as the stabilization of discursive forms is achieved to a great extent due to the printing press.
- ↑ Perla Chinchilla Pawling, Las formas discursivas: una propuesta metodológica, in Historia y grafía, no. 43, (México 2014), translated by Paulina León
