A perspectiva textual-discursiva da linguagem no estudo de artigos jornalismo de opinião: abordagens na mídia e no ensino

Abstract

This work focuses, in a textual discursive perspective of language, on the study of journalistic opinion pieces in media and teaching. In a first stage, we sought to learn the processes and strategies that characterize the discursive textualization of the genre, taking as its starting point the description and analysis of its social and verbal dimensions. For achieving that first aim, opinion pieces were collected from three Brazilian media platforms (the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo, the magazine Veja and the website UOL), published between January to December 2015. After that stage, aiming at a qualitative and interpretative study, the selected articles were analysed: they discuss an array of themes, especially social, political and economic issues. In the second phase of research, taking as reference results obtained from the investigation of the opinion pieces, we proceeded to the analysis of reading activities proposed for teaching that genre in textbook collections in Brazilian Portuguese for the countrys High School level. The research sought to verify: (i) which characteristics that identify the genre were explored in these activities; (ii) what profile of assumed reader was applied in these collections; and (iii) to which extent reading activities try to contribute to the formation of critical and proficient readers of that discursive practice. Since the project encompassed a complex analysis in various stages, a theoretical and methodological apparatus capable of catering to the expectations was necessary. In that sense, this research was based on theoretical postulates from Genre Analysis with emphasis on the work by the Bakhtin circle. To that fundamental reference, the methodological contributions by Social-discursive Interactionism (SDI) were added, including Textual Linguistics and Social Rhetoric, along with complementary studies from the field of Social Communication. To that theoretical basis we added the contributions by Textual Linguistics, the New Rhetoric and by Social Communication. The theories supporting this work are presented in a paced fashion throughout the text, according to the need for framing and discussing a concept and the different dimensions of the object. With the results from each stage, it was possible to achieve the central aims of this investigation. With the analysis of the social dimension, we could establish the main situational and discursive aspects guiding the constitution and the operation of opinion pieces in the journalistic field. With the analysis of the verbal dimension, we could gather a systematic group of elements characterizing the general infrastructure of the examined texts, focusing on the analysis of rhetoric movements, textualization mechanisms and strategies of enunciation which characterize the examples of the studied genre. Finally, regarding the investigated reading activities, results reveal that the didactic collections work unsatisfactorily with the identifying dimensions of opinion pieces, since they favour the genres formal structure over the social and linguistic aspects that characterize it. Additionally, it was possible to observe that the analysed didactic collections presuppose the work of a resigned and highly technical reader, a result that reveals a limited pedagogical practice regarding the formation of subjects that are critical and capable of understanding multiple strategies activated by media in the axiological evaluation of social developments.