Agentivation of external argument in reference to the Hispanic American Social Actor in Journalistic texts published by Jose Marti in the United States

Abstract

By examining the treatment of agentivity in the external statements about Hispanic American social actors, the article aims to demonstrate that, unlike other authors, José Martí presents these actors as being motivated by their own intentions and as being in control of their own lives, in other words, we are witnessing here a process of identity construction. Only the statements of external agents were used for the analysis. We observed that the most representative forms of agentivity are those that are found half-way in the scale, and these are arguments of predicates of modification, affectation or displacement. Consequently, they are among the prototypical arguments of result action verbs; and those farthest demanded by verbs that indicate possession. Their importance lies in the fact that this intermediate agentive structure contributes to the establishment of an idea of movement and spatial orientation (grow, ascend, move up) of transformation that alludes not to a physical space, but to a social imaginary in America. It was a creative moment of change and growth; besides, the alignment of groups, human flow and interpersonal relations represented by those agents play a critical role. The nature and resources of agentivity as they have been presented to observation assist in representing an identity in a process of crystallization in opposition to their own past and contradictory factors in the present. This process of identity is seeking to reaffirm itself in the face of the other; to achieve its credibility and to convince of the feasibility and convenience of its projects by the nature of those social actors and their works.