O gênero carta do leitor no Jornal do Commercio de Pernambuco: uma abordagem sociorretórica

Abstract

This work results from a research which investigated how the textual genre letter from the reader works in the universe of printed mass media, considering aspects of its enunciative project and its rhetorical organization. Being a genre situated in the sphere of opinion journalism, the letter from the reader has been an effective rhetorical construct so as to manifest points of view, giving conditions to users to participate in the public debate as a form of exercising citizenship in democratic societies. This genre has also been a “cultural artifact” which deserves attention by the academic community due to the fact of providing discussion about the real functioning of written human language in social practices of verbal interaction in a graphocentric society like ours. The research had the objectives of describing and analyzing letters from the reader having as main purposes to do a) an enunciative and contextual analysis trying to understand who produces and his/her intentions; who receives the letters and who select them; the form under which they are published; the force relations including the restrictions, conveniences, and game interests that its production, publication and reception of this genre imply and b) the rhetorical organization of the genre considering the recurrent features, the rhetorical moves and their strategies, although considering their heterogeneity in relation to this aspect observed particularly in four types of letter from the reader, such as: the compliment letter, the suggestion letter, the explanation letter and the consultation letter. The methodological proceedings adopted in the research were basically qualitative, supported by quantitative data from the recurrences observed in the corpus – 237 authentic letters from the read published in the Jornal do Commercio in Pernambuco State, Brazil, during the first semester of 2010. The theoretical foundation of the work is based on Textual Genre Theory in its sociorhetorical approach with the contributions of several researchers such as Swales (1990; 2009a; 2009b), Bhatia (1993; 1997; 2009), Miller (1984; 2009) and Bazerman (2006; 2007; 2009), counting on other relevant studies of Bakhtin (1976; 1993; 1997a; 1997b; 1998; 2003; 2009), Marcuschi (2007; 2008; 2010a; 2010b), among others. The results revealed the letter from the reader is a very heterogeneous genre, not only in relation to its communicative purposes, but also in its rhetorical organization. The analysis also showed that the processes of production, edition and reception of this genre are complex, due to the various socio and ideological aspects which underly its social use.