Text and action / lament as performance and pragmatics

Abstract

Lament, is the expression of grief and sorrow within the frame of certain oral and performative conventions upon which the society agrees in advance. As it is made manifest by its definition, lament is a form of social expression apt to be analyzed in terms of the "performance" notion put forward by Gilbert Lewis. In this text, it will be discussed to what extent the compilations of lament make feasible an accurate representation of this form of social expression within the social context in which it is produced. Furthermore, Dan Ben Amos' critique of folkloric compilations will be regarded taking into consideration the notions of "text", "texture" and "context" as introduced by Alan Dundes and the solutions that a relatively new domain of linguistics, namely pragmatics has to offer in the surmounting of the issues related to the accuracy of representation brought about by lament compilations.