Black consciousness: formation and circulation of a discursive formula

Abstract

This research intends to analyze the occurrences of the syntagma "black consciousness" and its variants - paraphrases, reformulations - in Brazilian contemporary discursive universe. To do so, it's based on French Discourse Analysis, particularly on the notion of discursive formula proposed by Krieg-Planque (2003, 2010). The corpus, organized from the circulation of the mentioned syntagma, consists of texts from different genres: scientific articles, print media, online and broadcast media, as well as official documents such as laws and statutes. The main goal is to analyze how "black consciousness" can become a "special place to understand how the various social actors organize, through the discourses, relations of power and opinion" (KRIEG PLANQUE, 2010 p. 09). By the occurrences of the syntagma, it is discussed some issues such as poverty, violence against minorities, university quotas, stereotyping etc., and also a controversy takes place: are the Brazilians the most racist people in the world or just the opposite of it? The research is justified by the lack of linguistic and discursive studies about the racism in Latin America, as pointed out by Van Dijke (2008). The author emphasizes the need for studies that are not focused on ethnic or folk properties of indigenous and black groups, but studies that take the daily racist practices of dominant groups, considering the discourse relevance in the reproduction of these practices. (AU)