Formas e funções das introduções referenciais

Abstract

The objective of this work is to describe the different forms and functions of the process of referential introduction. Departing from the notion of the text as the place of interaction; of Referentiation as socio- cognitive, dynamic activity negotiated and realized for the construction of the objects of discourse, we defend that such activity is initiated by an inauguration of the referent manifested by various discursive and textual strategies, of which not limited only to represent the first appearance of the referent in the text/discourse. As fundamental theoretical assumption, we reexamine the studies on Referentiation and the classificatory proposals of the referential processes in order to suggest a different analysis from the ones realized currently in the Textual Linguistics, that used to contemplate on the functions of the referential introductions. We observe the functional and formal elements activated in the introduction of the referents, in four distinctive textual types, and relating the data found to the communicative purpose of the type in which they appear. We proposed, this way, a study that would consider verbal and/or non- verbal elements present in the textual composition. Thus, we opted to analyze in this thesis, forty texts, divided into four journalistic textual types (those are: journalistic note, editorial, charge and comic strip), distributed on ten exemplars of every textual type. Departing from the idea that it is possible to: 1) inaugurate an object of discourse without referential expression, 2) describe the construction of meaning realized through an amalgam between the verbal and the visual, 3) introduce a referent utilizing inter-textual marks, 4) verify the existence of the referential expressions marked with recategarization. From this hypothesis, applied to the analysis of our sample, we defined some forms and functions for this referential process: as to the form, we found referential expressions apparently neutral, namely, without any marks with evaluative weight and, therefore, recategorizing. In relation to the function, we found the already expected role of the inauguration of the referents in the text/discourse; the orientation from the point of view since the tittle and along the text; the encapsulation of the textual portions and the initial ¨strangeness¨ about the referent, making the reader search, during the reading, the confirmation of who the object cited is, in the words and/or the images utilized in the textual type.