Correlating Texts from Different Theoretical Perspectives

Each word (each sign) of the text exceeds its boundaries.

Any understanding is a correlation of a given text with other texts.

Mikhail Bakhtin, 2006, p.161.¹

We are profoundly happy to inform that this issue of Bakhtiniana (vol. 13, iss. 1) starts the journal’s tenth year of existence. It was created in 2008 by the Language, Identity and Memory Research Group/CNPq [Brazilian National Research Council], which is affiliated with the Graduate Program in Applied Linguistics and Language Studies from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo/LAEL-PUC, with the aim to promote and disseminate research in the field of discourse studies. The journal has enjoyed an ongoing increase in the number of national and international readers and authors, which is associated to the academic recognition it has achieved nationally and internationally. Besides, it has been among the major quality journals in Brazil with international visibility. Although this is a reason for the editors to be proud, it is essential that we recognize that no discourse is divorced from its context, its relationship with the other, and the situations connected to it (BAKHTIN, 1986, p.127)². Therefore, we, authors, readers, editors, editorial board members, manuscript reviewers, translators and journal indexers, are all responsible for its actively and responsively competent realization(cf. BAKHTIN, 1986, p.69,³ among others).

If each word of the text exceeds its boundaries, the studies presented in this issue correlate texts from different theoretical perspectives. This way, although there is some predominance of the Bakhtinian perspective, this is a reasonably heterogeneous issue. This heterogeneity is also observed in relation to the concrete utterances that are analyzed in the articles. Thus, next to DDA (Dialogical Discourse Analysis), we also find FDA (French Discourse Analysis), rhetoric and literary theory, on which studies about literature, education and law discourse are based.

We start our presentation with the papers that focus on literature. João Anzanello Carrascoza (Escola Superior de Propaganda e Marketing, Sao Paulo, Brazil), a renowned contemporary Brazilian writer, sheds some new light on Manuel de Barros’ poetry in Consumption, Style and the Precarious in Manoel de Barros’ Poetry. He examines the relevance of Barros’ discursive strategy, especially his emphasis on “precarious” things and beings, based on relations between his poetic universe and the phenomenon of consumerism. To do so, he mobilizes concepts from Literary Theory, the interface between communication and consumerism, and FDA (French Discourse Analysis). The Peruvian Camilo Rubén Fernández-Cozman (Universidad de Lima, Lima, Peru) analyzes Thinking Styles in The Black Heralds by César Vallejo. Theoretically his study is grounded in General Textual Rhetoric and the stylistic typology proposed by Giovanni Bottiroli, based on which he analyzes rhetorical figures that express the poet’s thinking. In the article The Florentine Vanguard of Lacerba and Portugal Futurista: Affinities and Differences, Barbara Gori (Università de Padova, Padua, Italy) establishes a dialogue between elements of the Italian Florentine Futurism in the magazine Lacerba and the most complete propagandist manifesto of Futurism in Portugal, the magazine Portugal Futurista. This dialogue is achieved through the light she brings to events from the literary history of both countries.

The next set of articles is comprised of studies that are related to education, which is a theme that, especially in Brazil, has motivated many researchers whose studies are based on a Bakhtinian theoretical-methodological framework. In the article Teaching Work at Private Language Schools: Direct Speech and the Voice of Hierarchy, Luciana Maria Almeida de Freitas (Universidade Federal Fluminense - UFF, Niterói, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and Carlos Fabiano de Souza (Instituto Federal de Educação, Ciência e Tecnologia Fluminense - IFF, Cabo Frio, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) analyze the speech of teachers from language schools particularly related to their hiring process and teacher training. It highlights the boundaries associated with the voice of hierarchy and the perception of the authoritarian word of the Other. In Discursive Production of Space-Time in Teachers’ Accounts: Meanings that Redirect Teacher Training, we find again the analysis of teachers’ accounts - more specifically, in this article, of teachers in professional training. Nilsa Brito Ribeiro (Universidade Federal do Sul e Sudeste do Pará - UNIFESSPA, Maraba, Para, Brazil) shows readers the life paths taken by these subjects (the teachers) and how they are actualized in their discourses through space-time coordinates that construct their position in the world. The last article that approaches education is authored by Vanessa França Simas (Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil; Universidade de Granada - UGR, Granada, Spain), Guilherme do Val Toledo Prado (Universidade Estadual de Campinas - UNICAMP, Campinas, Sao Paulo, Brazil) and Jesús Domingo (Universidade de Granada - UGR, Granada, Spain) and is titled Possible Dimensions of Consciousness in Narrative Inquiry and in Self Narrative - a Bakhtinian Perspective. The article problematizes narrative writing and narrative inquiry as powerful means to foster awareness and promote professional self-development by presenting how a researcher investigates her own practice and questions how she constitutes herself as a teacher when she first starts teaching.

The last article is Ethos and Pathos in Justice-Rapporteur’s Discourse in Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, authored by Maria Helena Cruz Pistori (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo - PUC-SP, Sao Paulo Brazil), the Associate Editor of Bakhtiniana. Revista de Estudos do Discurso. She dialogically and rhetorically analyzes aspects of Justice-Rapporteur’s vote, which instructed the vote related to Direct Action of Unconstitutionality 3510. The article shows not only how the text of the Rapporteur’s vote reflects and refracts the social polemic surrounding the free use of embryonic stem cell for research, but also how the discursively constructed image of the self - the ethos - and the passions aroused in the audience - the pathos - are useful to persuade the audience, albeit no consensus was reached, neither in the Federal Supreme Court, nor in society. Finally, committed to disseminate important works and research studies in the area of discourse, this issue ends with the book review by Júlia Salvador Argenta (Universidade de Brasília - UnB, Brasilia, Brazil) on Magalhães, Martins and Resende’s book titled Análise de Discurso Crítica: um método de pesquisa qualitativa [Critical Discourse Analysis: A Qualitative Research Method].

As we can see, many researchers and higher education institutions, be them national (ESPM-SP, PUC-SP, UNICAMP, UFF, IFF-Cabo Frio, UNIFESSPA-Maraba, Para) or international (Universidad de Lima, Peru, Università de Pádua, Italy, Universidade de Granada, Spain) are represented in this issue. It is worth mentioning that, despite the current difficulties Brazil is facing, the publication of this issue is made possible through the effort of everyone involved and the financial support from MCTI/CNPq/MEC/CAPES [Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation/Brazilian National Research Council/The Brazilian Ministry of Education/Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education] and PUC-SP (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo) [Pontifical Catholic University of São Paulo], by means of their Plano de Incentivo à Pesquisa [Research Incentive Plan] (PIPEq) / Publicação de Periódicos [Journal Publication] (PubPer-PUCSP) - 2017, whom we thank gratefully. Once again, the high number of submissions and the rigorous selection of papers allowed us to present our readers with an excellent issue, as they will confirm it. Now as our journal starts to become mature, we reiterate our commitment to national and international research devoted to language studies and their relations with ethics, aesthetics, culture, and humanity.

Beth Brait*
Maria Helena Cruz Pistori**
Bruna Lopes-Dugnani***
Orison Marden Bandeira de Melo Júnior****

REFERÊNCIAS

• BAKHTIN, M. Os gêneros do discurso. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal. Trad. Paulo Bezerra. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006, p.261-306.
• _______.O problema do texto na linguística, na filologia e em outras ciências humanas. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal. Trad. Paulo Bezerra. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006, p.307-336.
• _______. Metodologia das ciências humanas. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal. Trad. Paulo Bezerra. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2006, p.393-410.

• Translated by Orison Marden Bandeira de Melo Júnior - [e-mail]
• 1
  BAKHTIN, M. M. Toward a Methodology for the Human Sciences. In: Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee. Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986, pp.159-172.
• 2
  BAKHTIN, M. M. The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis. In: Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee. Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986, pp.103-131.
• 3
  BAKHTIN, M. M. The Problem of Speech Genres. In: Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by Vern W. McGee. Edited by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986, pp.60-102.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Apr 2018