A festa do discurso: discurso e contexto sócio-histórico

Abstract

This paper discusses some topics raised by Diana Luz Pessoa de Barros in her work entitled The discourse party. Discourse theory and the analysis of writing assignments of University entrance examinations, with the purpose of highlighting and analyzing her main theoretical contribution: the investigation of the relations between discourse and socio-historical context. These relations are considered to be the outcome of an integration of what was then called internal and external approaches. The dissertation aims at developing a discourse theory that can reconcile, on the one hand, text analysis as a rule system able to explain its immanent organization (the internal approach), with, on the other hand, the analysis of the contextual insertion of any given text (the external approach). Social class insertion is taken to be the key element to relate discourse and socio-historical context. By analyzing writing assignments of University entrance examinations, Diana Pessoa de Barros demonstrates how to implement her theoretical proposal.