Brazilian and German package inserts: linguistics and intercultural differences

Abstract

In this project the aim is to analyze an amount of 20 package inserts from Brazil and from Germany, trying to identify structural and linguistic differences between the texts from both countries. With the results from the first stage, the paper continues with the contrastive description of some writing strategies for package inserts. This is the product that is expected until the end of this project. The main target of the description of the strategies is to suggest alternatives to diminish the difficulties related to the language and text construction so as the patient can read faster and easier a package insert and really understand its information. To achieve those purposes, it is necessary to focus on the main characteristics of the textual genre, paying attention on its illocutional function, which means that the linguistic analysis and the description of the strategies will put the real communication first. Furthermore, concepts from contrastive linguistic/ textology and other researches about package inserts that analyze other pairs of languages are important sources of knowledge and search for the development of the present research.