Ideological Complexes on Disability in The Iberian Literary Tradition of Galician-Portuguese Songs

Literature has been especially important in the construction of human thought and development. From this perspective, ideology, as a contextual dimension of a higher order, gets into the literary text and, at the same time, becomes shaped by the genius of authors throughout the centuries. Therefore, when we face ideological social dilemmas, such as the emergence, change, perpetuation and consequences of prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination on disability in our society, it is natural to question the role of the literature in the formation of foundational ideological paradigms. This article intends to marry a literary analysis with the functional linguistic approach of Appraisal –dealing with the semantics of evaluation– in order to present an initial set of ideas of our literary tradition in Galician-Portuguese medieval songs. Research goals include: the identification of (mis)representations of disability in the corpus; the detection of ideology(ies) scaffolding prejudicial representations; and the determination of the role of Galician Portuguese songs in consolidating or strengthening this type of prejudice. Results revealed this body of art presenting a misrepresentation of disabled people that, ultimately, composed a corollary of ideological heritage that have influenced the Iberian and Western literary tradition until the present time.