Modalidade deôntica como expressão de autoritarismo na série televisiva “O conto da aia”

Abstract

This research aims to analyze and describe how the deontic modality maps the authoritarian discourse manifests itself in the television series The Handmaid’s Tale. In this way, we will use the deontic modality, related to the axis of conduct, based on Fuentes Rodríguez (1991), Pessoa (2008) and Lopes (2014). We are also based on the Pragmalinguistic perspective of Fuentes Rodríguez (2017), which understands that contextual aspects must be included in the analysis along with phonological, morphosyntactic and semantic characteristics. To this end, we will observe the following aspects: (i) situational (temporality of events), (ii) superstructural level (textual sequences), (iii) macrostructural level (speaker, source, target, argumentative organization) and (iv) microstructural level (deontic manifestation, values, clause complexity, tense and phrasal type) of the series. Quali-quantitative in nature, our research uses the subtitles of the series in Portuguese as its corpus of analysis. Our premise is that the authoritarian context present in the series is beneficial for the appearance of linguistic constructions with high illocutionary force, such as obligation. Through the analysis, the most relevant data within each category were: (i) situational context: During Gilead (67.67%); (ii) superstructure: instructional sequence (87.93%); (iii) macrostructure: speaker – Mrs. Waterford (15.95%); source – Mrs. Waterford (15.52%); target – Offred (32.11%); neutral argumentative organization (41.6%); (iv) microstructure: manifestation – imperative (67.46%); value – order (34.91%); clause complexity – simple clause (76.61%); verbal tense – present (27,8%); phrasal type – imperative sentence (56.47%). According to the findings, it was possible to see that the environment of oppression against women, especially Handmaids, leaves marks on linguistic manifestations. Hierarchical positions with greater power act on lower ones so that the deontic modality is linked more frequently in this series to instructional sequences with more marked semantic values such as order, without requiring a complex phrasal structure to establish power over the other. Therefore, we notice that social oppression appears printed in linguistic marks of the deontic modality in The Handmaid’s Tale.