Textual linguistics and discourse theories in the Portuguese language

Research Projects:

(Dis)Courtesy in academic discourse

Description: This project aims to study interactive issues involving the academic discourse, especially regarding courtesy and discourtesy in interaction.

Professor in charge: Luiz Antônio Silva (luizs@usp.br)

 

Analysis of texts and discourse: genres, interaction, sociocognition, and teaching of the Portuguese language

Description: This project is part of PROCAD/NF 294/2010, established between the Graduate Program in Language Studies (PPGEL/UFRN), of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte, the Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo (PUC/SP), and the University of São Paulo (USP). The aim of the project is to strengthen and develop the PPGEL/UFRN, with the support and partnership of already experienced Graduate Programs, such as the case of PUC/SP and USP. To do so, there will be a dialogue between different theoretical axes and cooperation between researchers from different theoretical lines, but with one common denominator: projects that are based on Textual Linguistics, Genre Theory, Discourse Analysis, Interactional Sociolinguistics, and Applied Linguistics. In addition to the dialogue between graduate programs of different and experienced universities, there is the aim of consolidating a new line of research in the PPGEL/UFRN: Textual Linguistics and Teaching of Portuguese language.

Professor in charge: Luiz Antônio Silva (luizs@usp.br)

 

Printed journalistic genres: historicity, constitution, and change in a critical-discursive perspective

Description: In this project, we are dedicated to the study of the history of journalistic genres with the purpose of seeking, since the first publications in the newspapers of São Paulo of the 19th century, to reconstruct the constitution of texts included in journalism from the 19th century to the 21st century, and to identify the changes for which the texts went through, with reference to current copies, thus establishing the relationship between diachrony and synchrony. From the perspective of diachronic studies, several studies, with different approaches and directions, have gained notoriety. In this context, are also inserted research investigating the discursive traditions and critical linguistics studies. The theme proposed for this study is linked to Critical Discourse Analysis in the research line of Discourse Studies in Portuguese language of the Graduate Program in Philology and Portuguese language of FFLCH - University of São Paulo, which seeks to study the different discursive genres in a critical perspective. In this research we will establish an interaction between History, Sociology, Journalism, and Linguistics, a multi-disciplinary approach of the genres of discourse and language, aiming to describe the linguistic-discursive and social configuration of the various genres that compose the printed journalistic sphere in the state of São Paulo.

Professor in charge: Maria Lúcia da Cunha Victório de Oliveira Andrade (maluvictorio@usp.br)

 

NURC project – Phase 3

Description: Communication in speech and in writing. The project aims at investigating, through practical research in database from spoken and written language of discursive genres, what are the linguistic and paralinguistic mechanisms that speakers or writers refer to for their interpersonal interaction be more effective in bringing others the apprehension of their ideas.

Professor in charge: Marli Quadros Leite (mqleite@usp.br)

 

Intersubjective negotiation patterns in oral and written genres in Brazilian Portuguese: a critical-discursive and systemic-functional analysis

Description: The objective of the project is to investigate the configuration of the intersubjective negotiation process in a range of oral and written discourse genres in Brazilian Portuguese. In this sense, we seek, through the analysis of interpersonal resources, from a systemic-functional point of view, in dialogue with critical-discursive models, to infer the linguistic-discursive patterns that allow textual producers to exercise power and solidarity, thus constituting different degrees of instantiation of authority, credibility, and intimacy in the interactional game.

Professor in charge: Paulo Roberto Segundo (paulosegundo@uol.com.br)

 

Dialogical theory on language in texts of Bakhtin’s Circle in the late 1920s: introduction, translation, and notes

Description: Despite the significant presence of the concepts from the studies of Bakhtin’s Circle in Brazilian academic and educational context, the extent of the work combined with the difficulties arising from the intellectual context and of the Russian language are responsible, among others, by the fact that much of the work, already translated into Western countries, do not have a Portuguese version. Among these studies, I highlight the texts The formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics (1928) and Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929), which are fundamental to the understanding of the influence and dialogue that the Circle has undertaken, among others, with Russian formalists and with the formalism of the Western Europe, as well as for the development of the notions of discourse genre, of architectural form and compositional form, of thematic content, and of dialogical relations, to name only the most important. The present research project proposes an alliance between the traditional point of view in history of ideas, which consists of evaluating the contribution of a thinker in relation to the domain of thought in which he is subscribed, and the point of view that Bouquet and Grillo (2008) call presentist, i.e., to specify in what thought, in relation with the present state of language science, contributes in an original and useful way for the definition of epistemological objects and/or primitive concepts associated with these epistemological objects. Guided by that perspective and by our research trajectory, we propose, in a first stage of the project, the translation of the work The formal Method in Literary Scholarship: A Critical Introduction to Sociological Poetics (1928), and, in a second stage, Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics (1929). The basic texts of translations are the first editions of these works, photocopied on the Lenin Library in Moscow. The translation will be made in partnership with the Russian Ekaterina Vólkova, doctoral student in theory of literature at the University of São Paulo.

Professor in charge: Sheila Vieira de Camargo Grillo (sheilagrillo@uol.com.br)

 

Argumentation and power relations in the media discourse

Description: The research focus on issues of Argumentation in the discourse transmitted by the media, spoken or written, aimed at understanding the way discourse and power relations are organised, which are established among participants in certain discursive domains that are mutually crossed, such as journalistic and political discourses. It is a descriptive research that seeks to carry out linguistic-discursive analysis, to reflect on the actual operation of the discourse, considering the used argumentative strategies which show, at the same time, personal relationships, interaction, and context of which interlocutors take part in their discursive practices. Methodologically, procedures that consider qualitative analyses will also be prioritised. The quantification can be useful, if they are significant, to the analysis of the results. This project is linked to the Study Group of Discourse of USP (GEDUSP) - Argumentation Theories Subgroup, which I coordinate.

Professor in charge: Zilda Gaspar Oliveira de Aquino (ziaquino@usp.br)

 

Discursive studies on media at USP and UP: theoretical and practical implications

Description: Project of investigation and development in partnership between two scientific communities: the University of São Paulo, through the faculty and students of the Faculty of Philosophy, Languages and Literature, and Human Sciences (FFLCH) and of the Faculty of Education (FE) and the University of Porto (UP), through the faculty and students of the Faculty of Languages and Literature (FLUP) and the Linguistics Centre (CLUP, unit funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology, PEST-OE/LIN/UI0022/2011). Thus, the project must comprise four fields: discursive studies, media studies, teacher education, and teaching of the Portuguese language. The project aims to: 1) study the academic production to verify what has been done in the two Universities in the area that covers the Discursive Studies; and 2) contribute to the improvement of research in the area of Linguistic Studies, in particular, those that have the discourses transmitted by the media as an investigative and scientific concern objective, to understand to what extent the specificities of this object affect the area in which it is studied as well as the effects of such studies for teacher education with a view to their performance alongside a student increasingly connected to media.

Professor in charge: Valdir Heitor Barzotto (flc@usp.br)

 

Rhetoric and argumentation: discursive procedures test (part 2)

Description: This is an interdisciplinary approach within Language Sciences, involving the Discursive and Pragmatic Semiotics, among other disciplines. The project is linked to GERAR (Study Group for Rhetoric and Argumentation), with the same coordination of the professor responsible for the project, Prof. Dr. Lineide L. Salvador Mosca. The aim is to emphasize the universal character of Argumentation, the central part of Rhetoric, and analyse it as a complex activity, pointing out the mechanisms that cause an individual to act by a discourse on another, mutually interacting. Thus, the enunciative and cognitive-interactional perspectives are part of this approach for dealing with beliefs, opinions, values, and identities. The project is based on the conceptions of the traditional rhetoric and proceeds to the balance of the current state of art, in its constant renewal and under several approaches that language studies enables nowadays.

Professor in charge: Lineide do Lago Salvador Mosca (lineide@usp.br)