A polidez linguística para a construção de um discurso empático entre professores e alunos do ensino médio

Abstract

This research is based on Goffman's (1967, 2003) intersubjective perspective on social interactions, because, like the author, we consider that the meaning attributed to a verbal action is affected by the concept of “façade”, that is, the value attributed to the Self and the Other interferes in the linguistic choice made by the teacher to promote student participation during the discursive construction in the virtual classroom. It is understood that such contributions by Goffman made possible the concept of “face” used by Leech (1983, 2014) in his studies on linguistic politeness, for this reason this research investigates how the modulations of the Maxim of Tact supported by the other maxims that make up Leech's General Politeness Strategy (2014) interfere in the performance of the communicative relationship between teachers and students in the context of online teaching. The “Leechian” theory considers the possibility that other factors, in addition to politeness, affect social interactions. In this regard, the author proposes that empathy associated with politeness may constitute a form of reciprocity that favors human relationships. The possibility of this empathic factor (not investigated by Leech) interfering together with politeness in communicative interactions prompted this research to consider the parameters of the empathy-altruism hypothesis of Batson, Lishner, Stocks (2014), since these authors consider that empathy (empathic concern) contributes to altruistic behavior, the ultimate goal of which is to increase the well-being of the Other. Therefore, this research justifies the theoretical frameworks of Batson, Lishner, Stocks (2014) in parallel with the studies of Leech (2014), since both share the idea of interactivity according to their different research purposes. During this research process, methodological procedures were applied in a qualitative approach with a descriptive perspective, since the audio recordings of the teachers' speeches and their written messages in the chat were transcribed, both collected in classes recorded by the OBS application. Based on this corpus, the level of linguistic politeness characterized by the modalization of the structure and functionality of the first analytical category, the inquisitive act M2, thus named according to the Politeness Maxim of Tact established by Leech (2014), is subsequently analyzed. In parallel, the emergence of empathy traits evidenced through the emotive devices established by Caffi and Janney (1994), which are the second analytical category, is analyzed. The concomitant relationship between politeness and empathy traits in the teacher's discourse, when it occurs in a more expressive way, affects the teaching façade and the interactive behaviors between teachers and high school students in the online teaching-learning context.