Research Projects – Applied Linguistics: Text and Discourse Studies

ANA CAROLINA GONÇALVES REIS
Semiolinguistic analysis of Executive Secretary job openings posted on LinkedIn: a study of the profession’s imagery in 2023
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Religious discourse as a strategy of far-right political actors in the 2022 elections: a semiolinguistic analysis of tweets in election campaigns
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Verbal, Iconic, and Verboiconic Discourses: Semiolinguistic-Discursive Analyses in Different Corpora
In the early 1980s, studies in the field of Discourse Analysis (DA), notably French-Like Discourse Analysis (FLA), were marked by a new approach to working with discursive materiality. Launched in the 1960s under the assumptions of Michel Pêcheux as a discipline that viewed discourses as products of interactions between and among subjects, under specific social, historical, and ideological conditions of production, FLA then received an important theoretical and methodological contribution from the French researcher Patrick Charaudeau. Based on research developed during his doctorate, Charaudeau developed the Semiolinguistic Theory of Discourse, initially published in his 1983 book “Langages et Discours.” In his postulates, the semiolinguist defines discourse as the result of a complex psychosocial linguistic process through which subjects co-construct meanings. This process is configured as a circuit encompassing the linguistic and situational levels of language acts. In other words, the author defines discourse as an articulation between the linguistic (space of saying, internal to configured speech) and the situational (space of doing, external to configured speech), taking into account the behaviors of subjects in their interrelation with the psychosocial conditions in which they are inserted. Based on the premises of his theory, Patrick Charaudeau sheds light on work with a wide variety of corpora, aiming to enable an understanding of the dynamics of language exchanges, characterized, according to the author, as discursive enactments that emerge from interactions between subjects at the production and reception levels of a given speech project. Since its consolidation in Brazil, Charaudeau’s theory has gained notoriety, and many Brazilian graduate programs currently study it, such as those at UFPI, UFF, and UFRJ. In Minas Gerais, in particular, the large number of researchers who use Semilonguistic Theory to investigate various discursive manifestations are noteworthy. Examples include UFOP, UFSJ, UFU, CEFET-MG, PUC Minas, and UFV. In a quick survey we conducted in 2021, we found that the PPGLET/UFV (Graduate Program in Linguistics) stands out as the second-highest-ranking Graduate Program in Linguistics in Minas Gerais with the largest number of faculty working in Semiolinguistic Theory. Given this scenario, we present our research proposal. To fit into this context, our objective is to analyze the linguistic-discursive configurations of different corpora, based on the assumptions of Patrick Charaudeau’s Semiolinguistic Theory, with a view to understanding the potential meaning effects that discourses give rise to. We begin, following Bakhtin (1992), with the understanding that discourses, whether verbal, iconic, or verbo-iconic, simultaneously reflect and refract reality, thus configuring themselves as forms of a symbolic construction, by humans, of the facts of the world. Based on this perspective, we can say that discourses constitute and are constituted by ideologies or, in Charaudeau’s (2007) terms, by socio-discursive imaginaries, which engender forms of signification for the objects and facts of social reality. Thus, our proposal focuses on understanding the human-world/human-world relationship through the exercise of language.
The Marks of Subjectivity in Official Documents: The Argumentative Dimension in the Minutes Genre
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LEILANE MORAIS OLIVEIRA
Lectureship Program: Relationships between Internationalization Language Policies and Language Teacher Training in Brazil
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Language Policy within Jair Bolsonaro’s Diplomacy
This project aims to investigate strategic diplomatic policies for the development of national sovereignty, based on an examination of the actions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Jair Bolsonaro. Located within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, foreign language policies are part of what Nye (1990; 2011) called soft power – the influence that states establish through the dissemination and exaltation of their cultural traits, rather than through military force. These policies, when developed abroad, drive the internationalization of Brazilian Portuguese and national culture, simultaneously enabling the economy to revolve around the entire creative sector linked to the Portuguese language.

MARIANA RAMALHO PROCÓPIO XAVIER
Discourse of Difference: An Analysis of Life Narratives in Different Media Supports
The objective of this project is to reflect on the relationship between media and the discursive construction of self and others, especially given the growing and constant emergence of life narratives across a wide variety of media genres. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how differences, understood here beyond social markers such as class, race, gender, age, etc., permeate and compose the meaning of life narratives as they undergo a process of discursivization. This is an umbrella project that encompasses the directions developed, as well as my individual research interests.
Care Economy: Meanings and Silences about Work and Gender Inequality in the Media
The overall objective of this research is to investigate the meanings attributed to domestic work in distinct communicational contexts. Since care is a cyclical, continuous, and difficult-to-notice activity, as it does not generate a product to be capitalized on, we are interested in perceiving the presence and silence of this topic in the context of contemporary media in order to highlight gender inequalities. Specifically, for this work plan, we seek to: (i) identify and analyze discussion circuits on the topic of care on social media; (ii) analyze actions and content produced/disclosed by the State related to the care economy; (iii) identify which socio-discursive imaginaries are mobilized in these mapped occurrences and the discursive strategies deployed.
Differences in the Eyes of the State: Meanings and Actions Mediated by the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship
The general objective of this research is to investigate how different vulnerabilities are discursified by the Ministry of Human Rights and Citizenship in its policies and campaigns and how the ministry works to mitigate crises and social inequalities. Specifically, we seek to: (i) map the main actions carried out by the ministry, in order to identify prioritized themes, proposals, and subjects; (ii) analyze the dissemination strategies for the actions implemented by the Ministry, as well as the main discursive reactions to the content disseminated in official media.
Discourse of Difference: An Analysis of Life Narratives in Different Media Supports
The objective of this project is to reflect on the relationship between media and the discursive construction of self and others, especially given the growing and constant emergence of life narratives across a wide variety of media genres. Specifically, we are interested in understanding how differences, understood here beyond social markers such as class, race, gender, age, etc., permeate and compose the meaning of life narratives as they undergo a process of discursivization. This is an umbrella project that encompasses the directions developed, as well as my individual research interests.

RONY PETTERSON GOMES DO VALE
Discourses in Conflict: Interdiscursivity, Heterogeneity, and Subjectivity
This project seeks to analyze the types of discourse circulating in our society, focusing specifically on certain aspects such as: i) constitutive heterogeneity (constituent and non-constituent discourses) and displayed heterogeneity (intertextuality); b) macro and micro enunciative devices and their transformations; iii) the linguistic-textual organization of discursive materializations and their effects on meaning; and iv) the role of subjectivity in the processes of discourse production and reception. As a theoretical and methodological basis, we use Patrick Charaudeau’s Semiolinguistics, in dialogue with the positions of other thinkers in Discursive Studies, such as M. Bakhtin, R. Barthes, D. Maingueneau, among others. Furthermore, we maintain an interdisciplinary approach with other fields of knowledge, such as Rhetoric, Philosophy, and History, allowing us to encompass diverse corpora, ranging from everyday conversations (gossip, jokes, memes) to complex genres (song lyrics, biblical narratives, historical and biographical narratives, and multimodal online posts). Indeed, in this project, it is important to emphasize that the metaphor of conflict illustrates the struggle of the subject (and their subjectivity) in the face of the constraints imposed by society and language.

WELTON PEREIRA E SILVA
From language to discourse through enunciation: enunciative markers and their effects of meaning
Mobilizing theoretical assumptions arising from semi -linguistics and enunciative linguistics, our investigation seeks to describe and analyze linguistic marks that highlight the utterance, the subjective position of the subject in his saying, seeking to unveil what effects of meaning these marks trigger in the discursive plane. The objective is to analyze different corpora, aiming to categorize the inventory of linguistic forms that serve for argumentative and enunciative purposes. This research also has the applicability in tasks related to the assignment of authorship in forensic linguistics. By this approach, we will investigate whether and to what extent enunciative markers can function as evidence of linguistic authorship.