Discourse of resistance: tradition and rupture in verbal and verbal-visual discourses

Abstract

The project that guides the activities Visiting Professor Dr. Marília dos Santos Amorim/Paris VIII/França will carry out during her visit to LAEL/PUC-SP is titled Poder e resistência: tradição e ruptura em discursos verbais e verbo-visuais [Discourse of Resistance: Tradition and Rupture in Verbal and Verbal-Visual Discourses]. Directly aligned with the project Discursos de resistência: tradição e ruptura [Discourse of Resistance: Tradition and Rupture], which is described in a specific document and motivates the visit proposal, it aims to investigate, through the research activities to be done during the visit, the different discourse situations in which marks of historical change of our society are identified: in the incongruity between tone and sense, in the absence of connection and sequence in interlocutions, and in the lack of distinction between enunciative positions. These changes point to a new form of power, named non-authoritarian totalitarianism, which operates by erasing the singularity of the subject and promoting an indifferent memory. The approach to examine and interpret these situations is based on the Dialogical Analysis of Discourse (DAD), derived from Bakhtin and the so-called Circle. According to it, linguistic, enunciative and discourse dimensions are integrated, and so are the verbal, visual and verbal-visual modalities. This dialogical perspective is complemented by concepts from contemporary philosophy, such as Jean-François Lyotard's postmodern condition. As this project integrates Discursos de resistência: tradição e ruptura [Discourse of Resistance: Tradition and Rupture], it primarily aims to cooperate with the development of the latter by expounding, through description, analysis and interpretation, the verbal-visual approach engendered by the different planes of expression that are intertwined in the discursive fabric of resistance through language. It specifically aims to continue the solid research tradition between PUC-SP and Paris VIII/França, more specifically between the proponent and the visitor, established through prior visitations (in Brazil and France), the participation in research projects and groups, shared seminars through video conferences complemented by in loco activities, publications, among others. Based on this guiding principle, the specific objectives of this project are: (i) to show the specificity of the linguistic-discursive resistance, expressed through different genres; (ii) to identify discursive marks of new forms of power; (iii) to analyze the discursive operation in contexts of tension between tradition and rupture; and (iv) to conceptually elaborate the use and transposition of concepts from the Bakhtin Circle's oeuvre to the analysis of verbal-visual discourses. As the visitor will dialogue with Brazilian researchers from different institutions, areas of knowledge (Language studies, Bakhtinian studies, Dialogical Analysis of Discourse, Applied Linguistics, Psychology and Education), research groups and projects, we hope this project will advance interdisciplinary and interinstitutional knowledge and cooperate with the Humanities in Brazil and France - at least in what concerns the dialogical approach, once the results of this project will foster publication in national and international journals, according to the proponent and visitor's proposal. (AU)