O gênero carta de romeiros escrita pelos devotos do padre Cícero: da estrutura e do uso à conceituação

Abstract

This study brings a discussion about genre as a recurring human practice in the discursive enunciative activities present in everyday life. The discursive genres are multiples and serve different purposes. In this paper, we analyze letters written by pilgrims to Father Cicero considering the compositional structure, the communicative purpose, its rhetoric-discursive organization to characterize and to conceptualize the genre Letter from Pilgrim. The research is inscribed in the scope of the study of discursive genre having as theoretical-methodological basis the authors Bakhtin (2011), Marcuschi (2002; 2008), Miller (1984), Swales (1990; 1993) among others. Understanding genre as a social action, in accordance with Miller's thought (1984), it becomes unthinkable to marginalize any human grouping who has values that do not conform the cannons of the language of prestige defended by the cultural elites. The genre conception adopted by Swales (1990) integrates men in their habitat, as well as the communicative purposes and the genre that take place within the discursive community. These concepts (genre and discursive community) are the basis of the explanation of the generic structure. The model CARS (Create a Research Space), created by Swales (1990) for analyzing the structure of abstracts in research article introductions, offers the means to ascertain and, consequently, to understand the organizational structure of texts of diverse natures. The CARS model has been applied and reapplied by researchers in the analyses of different textual genres. The letter is inserted in this discussion by providing a direct communication between individuals besides making present the discursive practices of different epochs. From this understanding, we proceeded to study of 116 letters of pilgrims from Father Cicero, being the CARS model developed by Swales the basis for identification of the letter macrostructure and the units that comprise it, that is, the units, denominated movements, and the subunits, the steps. We obtained the following results: the first and the third units have two subunits each, with some of them missing or changing positions. The second, more dense unit, is presented unfolded in optional ways of conducting the information, with some letters with overlapping information. These data prove that the pilgrims write letters to Father Cicero to express requests, make promises, express appreciation. In view of the absence of papers addressing the letter from pilgrim, this thesis lead other perspectives of studies of letters written by pilgrims destined to other saints.