Manual de manuais : Elementos de análise do discurso / A Textbook of Textbooks : Elements of Discourse Analysis

This paper aims to analyze, from a semiotic perspective, José Luiz Fiorin’s book Elementos de Análise do Discurso [Elements of Discourse Analysis] as a “textbook of textbooks,” i.e., a textbook that gathers prototypical characteristics of teaching activities in undergraduate textbooks. Besides, it establishes a way to think and to teach the semiotics of discourse in Brazil. Starting from the analysis of the texts pertaining to the publishing activity, such as the book title, its cover, and the author’s presentation, I came to an inventory and an analysis of the textual segments related to teaching that were conceived by the textbook enunciator, such as theoretical exemplification and explanation. The reading suggested here seeks to put in evidence and to understand the originality and the contemporaneity of the book, which turned 26 years old in 2015 and has played a strategic education role for many generations of semioticians and discourse analysts.


RESUMO
Este trabalho tem como objetivo analisar semioticamente a obra Elementos de análise do discurso, de José Luiz Fiorin, como um "manual de manuais", isto é, um manual didático que reúne características prototípicas da prática didática de manuais universitários e que marcou um modo de pensar e ensinar a semiótica discursiva no Brasil.Partindo da análise de textos integrados à prática editorial, como o título da obra, sua capa e a apresentação do autor, chegou-se ao inventário e à análise dos segmentos textuais concebidos pelo enunciador do manual no âmbito da prática didática, como a exemplificação e a explicação teóricas.A leitura aqui proposta busca colocar em evidência e compreender a originalidade e a atualidade dessa obra que completou 26 anos em 2015 e que desempenhou um papel estratégico na formação de várias gerações de semioticistas e analistas do discurso.PALAVRAS-CHAVE: Manual; Práticas; Didática; Semiótica discursiva; José Luiz Fiorin necessary, we will refer to the 13 th edition, published in 2005, which, according to the front cover, is "revised and amplified."In fact, although the design, the cover, and some passages have been altered, in most cases the changes are not really substantial. 1 EDA is essentially a textbook whose target audience is either secondary or higher education students.However, as it mainly focuses on the latter, one could expect that the work would only reproduce and explain elements of the semiotics of discourse, which the author presents as "discourse analysis."However, as he presents his "discourse analysis" through Greimas's generative trajectory of meaning, there emerged some very singular and updated choices and conceptions that have become his trademark of intellectual legacy.This is the hypothesis that I will examine and that will guide the reading of this work.Apparently in reverse order, instead of attempting to analyze a work in the light of the author's oeuvres, I run the risk of seeking to illuminate his oeuvres under the dim and partial light of the work.
As I have suggested elsewhere (PORTELA, 2007; 2008), to semiotically understand a textbook is to conceive of it as a complex semiotic object.The level of the text-utterance is recovered and re-signified by different semiotic practices that are somewhat autonomous.Thus, teaching practice, more than text-utterance, becomes the privileged object of our analysis in this paper.
There is a decisive element to consider when analyzing a textbook: how the aspectualization of enunciatees' assumed competence determines teaching practice, adjusting its explanatory and illustrative sequence to previous competenceto be developedat introductory, basic, or advanced levels.The terminology for the aimed competence varies among textbooks, and many times, especially in university textbooks, it is not clearly and progressively presented.The terminology becomes explicit when specific book collections include it or when it is apprehended by the way in which the enunciator presents the textbook's rationale.In terms of graded textbooks adopted in primary and secondary schools, the traditional demarcation of school years gives rise to the aspectualization of competence development, which plays a more explicit constraining role to the text-utterance of each textbook.
The enunciator of the textbook produces a didactic text precisely because he enunciates, that is, he acts and intervenes with words in the predictive scene of didactic practice.However, this same didactic text is integrated into a publishing activity whose main goal is to make it reach as many readers as possible and to promote it based on its specificities.
From the analysis of the paratexts (GENETTE, 1997)2 that are part of the publishing activity, such as the work title, its cover, and the author presentation, I came to the inventory and the analysis of the textual segments.These segments were understood as theoretical exemplification and explanation by the enunciator of the textbook, which is in the sphere of the teaching activity.Here is the analysis path that I endeavor to follow.

A "Concessive" Title
The title Elements of Discourse Analysis has never led semioticians to indifference.If I am not mistaken, there is no use of the lexeme "semiotics" along the pages of the book, and yet semiotics is inherently present in the work.On the other hand, we find the lexical unit "discourse analysis" and the lexeme "rhetoric" 4 and 9 times in EDA respectively.
EDA helped me confirm my vocation to semiotics.At the same time, it demanded that my obsession for a paradise filled with semiotics and semioticians be moderate.Today this seems to be an absurd image.In my first years of learning, I was a dogmatic and obtuse Greimasian.In fact, I was obtuse because I was dogmatic, and I understood the title of the book as a concession.
Concession, according to my first reading or misreading, was a consequence of infidelity or, at least fidelity and change, as A. J. Greimas suggests in the introduction of the second volume of On Meaning (GREIMAS, 1987). 3Only many years later did I start to understand the sphere in which semiotics was and is.This is when I began to be an advisor of my first students and to dimension the role that semiotics plays in linguistics programs and in discourse theories.I was thus able to understand that the title, i.e., this ethics project, was chosen in order to redeem semiotics among us and to guarantee that its teachings reached a wider audience, which the semiotics of discourse never did in France, for example.

Fiorin chose Elements of Discourse Analysis instead of "Elements of Semiotics."
In other words, he chose the hypernym, that is, a broader term that contains and defines the nature of semiotics, which, as we know, is nothing other than a methodology for discourse analysis.Assuming an "ecumenical" position in relation to the name of the discipline that he is presenting, thus neutralizing theoretical differences in favor of a project of discourse legibility is, as we will discuss further on, refusing to classify semiotics as the theory of discourse.Fiorin himself makes it clear in EDA's introduction (FIORIN, 2002, p.10).
The title choice seems to have been dictated by concession.By concession, I do not mean renouncement, desertion, but the meaning given by Claude Zilberberg (2011).
For him, concession is in the domain of the unexpected, the unpredictable; it is the surprising register of occurrences that shatter monotonous facts and certainties produced by implication into countless promises or possibilities.
It is in this sense that it is possible to state that EDA was given a non-implicative title.Implication would have led to a predictable title, such as "Elements of Semiotics."Today I believe this would have been an easy way out.It would have sounded simplistic, sectarian, and little strategic.EDA's concessive title derived from an ambiguous, difficult, and unusual choice, which was pragmatically (it is necessary to reach a wide audience) and programmatically (we are not whiteflies, avis rara; we are "people of discourse") based.

Prototypical Textbook
It is possible that EDA, the textbook on the semiotics of discourse, is a bestseller that has been the most used in higher education and the most commented on in Brazil.It is side by side Barros's (1990) classic textbook.Among us there has never been a semiotics textbook with so many editions (15 editions until 2014 whereas Barros's textbook (1990) had five editions until 2011) and probably in so many references of articles, essays, dissertations, and public examinations.The hypothesis that the number of editions of a specific work (not taking the number of printings into account) may say something about its editorial circulation and its reception in a specific scientific culture sounds reasonable.However, it would be necessary to conduct a detailed editorial and commercial study on the number of copies sold of each edition and the precise time interval between editions to prove it.Unfortunately, as we know it, a study that depends on information provided by publishers may not be totally accurate.
In what sense can one believe that EDA is a "textbook of textbooks"?First of all, it is due to its many specific features: (1) EDA is our first semiotics textbook whose target audience is not necessarily university students; (2) EDA is not limited to teaching semiotics.It unveils an authorial way to think of semiotics as a theory of discourse.The organization of the book chapters is a proof of that, for they deal with syntax and discursive semantics broadly, whereas the content of the majority of the textbooks on semiotics presents every element of the generative trajectory of meaning.
(3) In EDA narration is at the service of discourse, which in turn is on the borderline of enunciation and is sheltered by a rhetoric project.
(4) The book rejects elitist and superficial ideas of "flourished language" (FIORIN, 2002, p.10) and "rhetorical ornament" (FIORIN, 2002, p.62), which, along with other terms, still prevail in the teaching of language and literature.It endorses, however, the development of students' competence by enabling them to master a grammar of discourse and its mechanisms.
(5) The author's examples are erudite and popular, formal and youthful, academic and personal.
Secondly, EDA can be regarded as a "textbook of textbooks" because we recognize its modeling and prototypical nature if compared to other semiotics textbooks that have been published in Brazil and abroad.Besides, it perpetuates the tradition of textbooks on the semiotics of discourse, such as the works of Joseph Courtés (1976), Groupe d'Entrevernes (1979), Anne Hénault (1979, 1983), Mônica Rector (1979), Desiderio Blanco & Raul Bueno (1980), and Diana Luz Pessoa de Barros (1988).At the same time, as the first of its type in Brazil and in the world, that is, a chef-d'oeuvreto use a Gallicism-, it lays the foundations for a new type of textbook, which teaches semiotics not as an end in itself, but as a means to help readers develop interpretation skills.

The Book Cover
As any other publication, EDA has a limiting dependence on publishing activity, for it is the publisher that makes it fit into a book series (Repensando a língua portuguesa [Rethinking the Portuguese Language]).The series, in turn, determines its own publishing specificities, such as objective, target audience, visual identity, paratextual organization, number of pages, etc.
It is possible for us to read EDA only at the enunciative level of the text, which allows us to sever it from its materiality and circulation.Nevertheless, we can still read it in the light of its relation to other texts, supporting objects, and practices even if briefly (FONTANILLE, 2008).This approach takes us to reflect upon the cover of the book that has a containing/contained, represented/presented relationship with the content of the book.
The cover fulfills the function of a true wrapping on which general and essential elements related to identification (nature and purpose), destination (enunciatorenunciatee relationship), and use (persuasive and initiative dimension) are inscribed.
On the upper part of the page of the textbook that we analyzed (11 th edition) we find the title of the book series followed by the title of the book.Between the book title and the author's name, we find textual elements that can be read as some sort of sub-title.However, we know they are not, for there is no syntactic connection between the predominantly nominal syntagms.Therefore, they are listed as a thematic element that is pertinent to the work:4 These "headlines," which draw the attention of a reader or a somewhat heterogeneous group of people, simultaneously and differently presuppose a need for and an aspectualization of: (1) the identity of the enunciatee: a young high school senior who will take a college admission exam.His/her competence is in development, in progress; (2) the purpose of the enunciator, who connects the two ends of the process of text comprehension: reading, i.e., interpretation, and production.He holds, thus, the knowledge that is inclusive and, at the same time, settled, finished, complete.
It seems that the unfinishedness of the form is balanced by the finishedness of the methodological project of competence development.
"How to take advantage of reading" is the only syntagm that is evidently verbal.
More than a narrative program, it is a counterprogram, for it makes us assume that there are either disadvantageous ways to read or ways in which we do not take full advantage of it.That is why one needs to "take advantage of reading." If we analyze the formal aspects of the cover, conceived as the supporting object of the inscription, these sentences occupy a space of double prominence.Firstly, they are in the first page; secondly, they are placed between the title and the author's name as their intercalating elements.
The publishing project makes it clear that the book is of a didactic nature, for its target audience is high school and college students, and its purpose is (self)competence development.That is why the enunciator of the publishing activity apparently inscribes these textual specifications in the in-between zone, which is the zone of mediation, so to say, between the work and the author.In this way, the readers and their needs and weaknesses come between the work and the author.
"The production of literary texts" is far from being a naive utterance, as it becomes an important filter in terms of competence development.The understanding of literary texts is not easily achieved in first language teaching classes.Besides, literary texts play an important role in students' passing college admission exams and are conferred considerable prestige in culture.More importantly still, they show the enunciator's analytical sensibility and delimit the teaching practice that guides the textbook.

The Author Inscribed in his Text
In EDA the first text to which the reader has access is entitled "The Author in Context," a third-person presentation of the author.It seems a narrated interview that uses direct quotes, a journalistic "profile.""The Author in Context" presents the reader the humane dimension of the law student candidate who trod life's different paths, of the teaching missionary who roamed the countryside and the countryside man who traveled from Araraquara to Paris (how many others after him have not taken this emblematic air shuttle!), of the man who drinks, roots for teams, reads, criticizes, and is committed, moved, casting a mature look at the trodden path.He is a lyrical bon vivant and a politically active citizen at the same time.He is enchantingly disenchanted.This presentation is far from being a sole narrative of the cognitive competence of EDA's enunciator.To the contrary, it builds an actor of high passionate density:

THE AUTHOR IN CONTEXT
(1) JOSÉ LUIZ FIORIN is originally from Birigui, São Paulo.He intended to study Law at the University of São Paulo Law School.5However, life's unfortunate events6 led him to stay in the countryside.As he studied Languages (Letters), an undergraduate program at Faculdade de Penápolis [Penápolis College], he became interested in becoming a teacher, which he did in different cities, such as Penápolis, Piacatu, Birigui, Distrito de Roteiro, Guaraçaí, and São Paulo.He remembers good-humoredly that he was almost sued by a girl student's mother because he had read an excerpt of A Carne [The Flesh]. 7He is also moved 8 when he remembers that in Distrito de Roteiro he taught Portuguese as a foreign language to immigrant adults who only spoke Japanese.
(2) Having passed an official examination, he was transferred to São Paulo, where he got his master's degree and PhD in Linguistics at Universidade de São Paulo (USP).In 1980 he was a teacher in Araraquara 9 and in 1983 he did his "scientific specialization training" 10 at the École de [sic] 11 Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales under the supervision of Prof. Algirdas Julien Greimas. 123) Besides 13 having written many articles, he wrote, among others, Semiótica da Cultura, arte e arquitetura [Semiotics of Culture, Art, and Architecture] (EDUC)[sic]; 14 O regime de 1964: discurso e ideologia [The 1964 Regime: Discourse and Ideology] (Atual), and Linguagem e ideologia [Language and Ideology] (Ática).15 (4) Language, in all its forms, entices him: "from a chat with friends preferably in a bar drinking beer" 1617 to cinema, literature, theater, which do not necessarily have to be classified as high standard.18 He loves police novels, popular music, and enthusiastically roots for Palmeiras soccer team, which, according to him, has made him more disappointed 19 than pleased for several years.

3 The Epigraphs
There is an epigraph from João Cabral in every chapter but chapter 2.
Especifically in this chapter the epigraph is from Dante, in the original in Italian: "Le cose tutte quante / hanno ordine tra loro, e questo è forma / che l'universo a Dio fa simigliante" (FIORIN, 2002, p.15). 25 This is a little whim of someone who is in love with The Divine Comedy.
The epigraphs from João Cabral are thematically and narratively related to key moments of EDA's theoretical reflection.This is the epigraph in Chapter 1, entitled Why a Semantics of Discourse?(FIORIN, 2002, p.11): Situated in a pool, water resembles a word in its dictionary situation: isolated, standing in the pool of itself and, because it is standing, stagnant.Because it is standing, it is mute, and mute because it doesn't communicate, because this river's syntax, the current of water on which it ran, was cut. 26e picture of the water, the river, and its misfortune in this epigraph reveals the impossibility to signify by using an isolated unit; thus, it discloses the need for integration and dynamism, i.e., the need to go from morphology to syntax and then to discourse.
The epigraph in Chapter 3, entitled Discursive Syntax (FIORIN, 2002, p.39), is: a river needs many currents of water for all of its pools to be phrasedbeing restored form one pool to the next into short phrases, then phrase to phase, until the river-sentence of the only discourse in which it can speak will defy the drought. 2725 TN.Translation of the lines by John Ciardi: "The elements of all things, […] whatever their mode, observe an inner order.It is this form that makes the universe resemble God."The full reference is: ALIGHIERI, Dante.The Divine Comedy.Transl.John Ciardi.New York: New American Library, 1970, p.600. 26  Here the picture of connection, superposition, dominance of elements, enunciation in its peculiar movement between unity and fragmentation is revealed.
Make the loose word adhere to the body of its referent, fusing it into a solid, dense thing, able to clash with the one next to it.Don't let its speech stick out but impose the discipline of speaking anonymouslyjust another word in the line. 28ese pictures reveal the relationship between that which manifests and that which is manifested.It also discloses the coherence of the means of expression, their cohesion and homogeneity, and the notion of recursivity and of likeness between types and families.

The First Examples...to Students
In EDA, the first examples given by Fiorin clearly show who the book's enunciatees are, viz., the young students: [writing about the deep level] (for example, passing college admission exams and the ark of the covenant in the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark are the same in a deeper level, i.e., they are about being able to do: in the first situation, it is about being able to enter college; in the second, to defeat the enemies) (2002, p.13). 29 The Pastor, the owner of the house, thought that by asking about the W.C., she meant the White Chapel: Gentle Lady, I have the pleasure to inform you that your place of interest is 12 km [7,4 miles] away from the house.It is very convenient, especially if one is used to going there frequently.In this case, it is best that one take some food to spend the day there.Some people go there on foot, some by bike.The place fits 500 people (400 sitting, and 100 standing).As seats are velvet covered, it is recommended that one arrive early to find a seat.Children sit next to their parents, and everybody sings in unison.Upon entering, every single person is given a sheet of paper; however, if one arrives after papers are distributed, one may use the paper of the person next to him/her.Upon exiting the place, one must return the paper so it can be used again during a month period.There are sound amplifiers.Everything we are given is for the poor children who live in the district.Photographs taken by special photographers are published in local newspapers so that everybody can see their fellow humans doing such humane deeds (FIORIN, 2002, pp.82-83). 37really wished that this example had come on page 15, where the Apólogo dos dois escudos [Apologue of Two Shields] by José Júlio da Silva Ramos is.It is maybe the caprice of an anxious and bold reader.Due to the semantic rhythm of the selected examples, it is obvious that this joke, in terms of its strategic use, has terminative rather than inchoative value.Thus, it would hardly come as the first example of this type of textbook, in which its responsibility to the canon is evident.

1 Text against "the" Theory
In a time of a relatively formal rigor of the discursive semiotic theory, EDA chooses to deal with "some elements of discourse grammar" and "some of the theoretical projects of discourse analysis" in its syntax and semantics.It follows the generative trajectory of meaning, and although it does not deny the cultural, social, and historical aspect of texts, which is (significantly) called "dialogic," EDA parenthesizes it: One can approach a text from two complementary standpoints.On the one hand, one can analyze the syntactic and semantic mechanisms that are responsible for meaning production; on the other hand, one can understand discourse as a cultural object that is produced according to historical conditions and that is dialogically related to other texts.In this book we intend to discuss some elements of discourse grammar.We have already analyzed ideological determinations reflected in language in other books, which are found in this book's References.Our goal is not to present "the" theory of discourse analysis but to introduce one of the theoretical projects of discourse analysis that are under development.Other projects that have the same goal are on the way.Each and every one of them has virtues and limitations.That is the reason why this book does not show "the" truth, but one of the many truths related to language, which is "multiform and heteroclitic" and has defied men of all places and times (FIORIN, 2002, p.10; our emphasis). 38king evident the dialogic nature of texts in semiotics had never been done in textbooks of discourse semiotics.EDA does it throughout the whole book.
In EDA the text is defined by its complexity.It is understood as an object that transcends the boundaries of theory and impels us to even conceive of "the" omnipotent theory when analyzing texts.The enunciator takes an ethical stand when he carefully relativizes the role semiotics plays in different approaches to discourse and tries to 38 Text in original: "O texto pode ser abordado de dois pontos de vista complementares.De um lado, podem-se analisar os mecanismos sintáxicos e semânticos responsáveis pela produção do sentido; de outro, pode-se compreender o discurso como objeto cultural, produzido a partir de certas condicionantes históricas, em relação dialógica com outros textos.Neste livro, pretendemos tratar apenas de alguns elementos da gramática do discurso.As determinações ideológicas que incidem sobre a linguagem foram por nós analisadas em outros livros, que constam da bibliografia.Nosso objetivo não é apresentar "a" teoria da análise do discurso, mas um dos projetos teóricos de análise discursiva que hoje se desenvolvem.Outros projetos com essa mesma finalidade estão em andamento.Cada um deles tem virtudes e limites.Por isso, neste livro, não está "a" verdade, mas "uma" das muitas verdades a respeito da linguagem, fenômeno "multiforme e heteróclito", que tem desafiado o homem de todas as épocas e de todos os lugares."neutralize extreme views of what is good or bad, appropriate and inappropriate in text analysis.

2 Proper to Semiotics
If the text is defined as bigger than theory, the semantic understanding of discourse, such as Greimas understood it, is not relativized.This is how Fiorin defines it, using the same format of the definition found in Greimas and Courtés's Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary (1982): 39 For Greimas, Semantics must be: a) generativeit must create models that apprehend the levels of progressive meaning invariance so one may come to the realization that different elements in the surface level may render the same meaning of those in a deeper level […]; b) syntagmaticit must explain the production and interpretation of discourse rather than lexical units that make up a sentence; c) generalit must postulate the unicity of meaning, which can be manifested by different planes of expression (one at a time or several of them at the same time.For example, the content 'negation' may be manifested by a verbal expression, such as 'no,' or by 'shaking the head' […]) (FIORIN, 2002, p.13). 40ether generative, syntagmatic and general, deep and superficial, or manifested in different planes of content and expression, the generative trajectory of meaning is introduced to enunciatees as a project of rigor, present in all its specificities.The syntax and the semantics of the levels of the generative trajectory of meaning are the axes of the book.They are valued as the means to go from singularity (autonomous, relational) to plurality (different layers of semantic investment): The syntax of the different levels of the trajectory is also of a conceptual nature.That means that every combination of forms produces a different meaning.The difference between syntax and 39 GREIMAS, Algirdas Julien; COURTES, Joseph.Semiotics and Language: An Analytical Dictionary.Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1982. 40Text in original: "Para Greimas, uma Semântica deve ser: a) gerativa, ou seja, deve estabelecer modelos que apreendam os níveis de invariância crescente do sentido de tal forma que se perceba que diferentes elementos do nível de superfície podem significar a mesma coisa num nível mais profundo [...]; b) sintagmática, isto é, deve explicar não as unidades lexicais que entram na feitura das frases, mas a produção e a interpretação do discurso; c) geral, ou seja, deve ter como postulado a unicidade do sentido, que pode ser manifestado por diferentes planos de expressão (por um de cada vez ou por vários deles ao mesmo tempo: por exemplo, o conteúdo /negação/ pode ser manifestado por um plano de expressão verbal 'não' ou por um gesto como 'repetidos movimentos horizontais da cabeça' [...])." semantics does not stem from the fact that one produces meaning and the other does not.It means that syntax is more autonomous than semantics, for the same syntactic relation may receive vastly different semantic investments (FIORIN, 2002, p.18). 41e nature of meaning's orchestrated work in progress is asserted by the freedom that syntax, which structures the levels of the trajectory, and semantics, which is in charge of filling them with modalities, figures, themes, and values, have.

Reading and Isotopy in "Discourse Analysis"
Issues related to reading and text analysis are dealt with in EDA.This is done on the bases of a semiotic reflection and especially on the bases that founded the criticism addressed to the theory.For Fiorin, the grammar of discourse resembles roughly a theory on reading, but "not on every and any reading": We have heard so many times that texts are open, so any interpretation of a text is valid.When one says that a text is open to different readings, it means that a text allows more than one reading, but not every and any reading.What is the difference here?The different readings that a text allows are inscribed in it as possibilities.That means that in a text that allows multiple interpretations there are indicators of polysemy.Thus, the different readings are not done according to readers' arbitrary decision, but to the significant virtualities that are present in the text (2002, p.81). 42text in the semiotics of discourse is a somewhat open work, for it is possible to define its boundaries and to confirm its polysemy.Thus, it is subject to parameters of interpretation.This discussion works as some sort of strategic counterprogram that responds to the programs that criticize and belittle the theory.EDA's enunciator unveils his knowledge about the academic and institutional scenario in which his presentation 41 Text in original: "A sintaxe dos diversos patamares do percurso tem também um caráter conceptual, o que significa que cada combinatória de formas produz um determinado sentido.A distinção entre sintaxe e semântica não decorre do fato de que uma seja significativa e a outra não, mas de que a sintaxe é mais autônoma do que a semântica, na medida em que uma mesma relação sintática pode receber uma variedade imensa de investimentos semânticos." 42Text in original: "Inúmeras vezes ouvimos dizer que o texto é aberto e que, por isso, qualquer interpretação de um texto é válida.Quando se diz que um texto está aberto para várias leituras, isso significa que ele admite mais de uma e não toda e qualquer leitura.Qual é a diferença?As diversas leituras que o texto aceita já estão nele inscritas como possibilidades.Isso quer dizer que o texto que admite múltiplas interpretações possui indicadores dessa polissemia.Assim, as várias leituras não se fazem a partir do arbítrio do leitor, mas das virtualidades significativas presentes no texto." of semiotics is and aims to develop his reader-enunciatee's competence by disclosing and anticipating other problematic and critical perspectives.
It is not by chance that when one refers to reading, isotopy has to be defined.
Moreover, it has to be asserted as an instrument of disambiguation, allowing the analyst to determine the planes of reading and the types of text: The concept of isotopy is extremely important to discourse analysis, for it allows one to determine the plane(s) of reading, to control the interpretation of plurisignificative texts, and to define the mechanisms used to create specific types of discourse, such as comedies (FIORIN, 2002, p.86; our emphasis). 43is is a result of the fact that, as we know, the isotopic principle is grounded in semantic reiteration: In discourse analysis, isotopy is the recurrence of the same semantic trait throughout the text (FIORIN, 2002, p.81; our emphasis). 44..] The recurrence of semantic traits establishes how the reading of a text is to be done.This reading is not a result of the reader's imagination: it is inscribed in the text (FIORIN, 2002, p.82). 45 An isotopic analysis is an antidote that prevents reading from being ad libitum; in other words, it stops readers from using their free will and imagination when interpreting texts.Besides, it does not allow them to say whatever they want about the text, once it seeks to draw conclusions from discourse within the boundaries of its own creation.Somehow this emphasis on isotopy hints at the fact that EDA took a stand for discourse analysis.This can be perceived in the way the book was organized.If we look at the book's Content, we see that there is no chapter that discusses the narrative components of texts especifically.In EDA the narrative level is absorbed by a broad semantics of discourse, which becomes not only the semantics of the discursive level per se, but the general semantics of discourse. 43Text in original: "O conceito de isotopia é extremamente importante para a análise do discurso, pois permite determinar o(s) plano(s) de leitura dos textos, controlar a interpretação dos textos plurisignificativos e definir os mecanismos de construção de certos tipos de discurso, como, por exemplo, o humorístico." 44Text in original: "Em análise do discurso, isotopia é a recorrência do mesmo traço semântico ao longo de um texto." 45Text in original: "[...] A recorrência de traços semânticos estabelece a leitura que deve ser feita do texto.Essa leitura não provém da fantasia do leitor, mas está inscrita no texto." When reading the quoted texts, we are not unaware that the author insistently mentions "discourse analysis," found in many other passages throughout EDA.This attempt to present the semiotics of discourse as a theory of discourse, which is so dear to Fiorin, must not have gone unnoticed by the discourse analysts (in the narrow sense) of his time.

Enunciation and Rhetoric
EDA's most striking innovation is the fact that it integrates mechanisms of rhetoric with the syntax of discourse, viz., enunciation.This integration, which would only become a reality in France at the end of the 1990s, is not found in the Greimasian work of the 1980s and much less in the textbooks of discursive semiotics prior to that.This precocious dialogue with Rhetoric does not seem to be originated only from Fiorin's erudition, but from the construction of an enunciator who attempts to intervene in the teaching practice of his time and who explored the most current rhetoric figures as strategies to text reading.Thus, especially for an enunciator who wants to take a stand for theoretical and methodological integration and inclusion, it is almost natural that he tried to semioticize that which was commonly used in teaching.
[In O coronel e o Lobisomem (The Colonel and the Werewolf)] 46 The agreement between utterance and enunciation creates predictability, normality, and certainty.It does not create contradiction.The disagreement between them, however, constitutes the realm of unpredictability, uncertainty, abnormality, lability, and contradiction.From this point of view, rhetorical mechanisms are not "ornaments" that can be omitted; on the contrary, they are means of speech that cannot be substituted.Besides, they should not be called figures, but procedures, mechanisms (FIORIN, 2002, p.62). 47is is what Fiorin will pursue more intensely decades later in works such as gradual (more and less).This avant la lettre tensive treatment, with its increase and decrease, i.e., this way of treating rhetorical mechanisms, aims to place them at the service of an enunciator who is aware of his means and goals: As these rhetorical figures are used as strategies of persuasion, we have no interest in working on isolated figures as textbooks usually do.What really matters here is to show their function in the general control of meaning production (FIORIN, 2002, p.55). 48 EDA's inventory, we find irony, litotes, preterition, and ellipsis as categorical opposition, and euphemism and hyperbole as gradual opposition.Whether the oppositions are discreet or ongoing, we clearly see Fiorin's intent to introduce rhetorical figures (and their major and minor variations) and tensions in reading.These tensions control the semiotic existence of entities that are actualized and realized in rhetorical operations.

To Conclude: Seeking what they Sought
This paper aimed to showcase that, under the apparent simplicity of this bestselling textbook, there is a complete, original, and current program of semiotics.This The present analysis of EDA attempted to explicit an intellectual project that began in the 1980s and proved vigorous and coherent.It was established on the 48 Text in original: "Como essas figuras retóricas são usadas como estratégia de persuasão, não há nenhum interesse em apreender figuras isoladas como fazem os manuais escolares.O que importa é mostrar sua função na economia geral de produção de sentido de um texto."

1
Reading Elements Elements of Discourse Analysis (EDA) is José Luiz Fiorin's third book.It was published in March of 1989, a year after the publication of Linguagem e ideologia [Language and Ideology] (1988a) and O regime de 1964: discurso e ideologia [The 1964 Regime: Discourse and Ideology] (1988b).It turned 26 years old in 2015 and was re-edited 15 times until 2014.In this paper, we will analyze EDA's 11 th edition, published in 2002, which essentially retains the features of the first edition.Whenever He also believes this is a generation issue: "my generation lived the certainty of change and the disenchantment of repression." 21 22He quotes Alex Polaris's lines: Our generation had little time It started at the end, 13 This paragraph was completely rewritten in the 13th edition: "Besides having written articles and books, he wrote, among other works, O regime de 1964: Discurso e Ideologia [The 1964 Regime: Discourse and Ideology]; Linguagem e ideologia [Language and Ideology]; As astúcias da enunciação: As categorias de pessoa, espaço e tempo [The Astuteness of Enunciation: The Categories of Person, Space, and Time]; Para entender o texto: Leitura e Redação [To Understand a Text: Reading and Writing]; Lições de texto: Leitura e redação [Text Lessons: Reading and Writing].The last two were written by José Luiz Fiorin and Francisco Platão Savioli.Among others, he edited the following works published by Editora Contexto: Introdução à linguística I. Objetos Teóricos [Introduction to Linguistics I: Theoretical Objects] and Introdução à linguística II.Princípios de análise [Introduction to Linguistics II: Principles of Analysis].Text in original: "Além de artigos e capítulos de livros, escreveu, entre outros, as obras O regime de 1964: discurso e ideologia; Linguagem e ideologia; As astúcias da enunciação: as categorias de pessoa, espaço e tempo; Para entender o texto: leitura e redação; Lições de texto: leitura e redação (os dois últimos em parceria com Francisco Platão Savioli).Organizou, entre outros, os livros Introdução à linguística.I. Objetos teóricos e Introdução à linguística.II.Princípios de análise, ambos da Editora Contexto." 14This piece of information, which we find in different editions from 1989 until about 2002, is not correct.Semiótica da Cultura [Semiotics of Culture] is not a book; it is an essay that was published in OLIVEIRA, A. C.; SANTAELLA, L. (Org.)Semiótica da cultura, arte e arquitetura [Semiotics of Culture, Art, and Architecture].São Paulo: EDUC, 1987, v.1, pp.67-78. 15After the presentation of his works, the 13 th edition added the following: "He was a member of CNPq's [National Counsel of Technological and Scientific Development] Deliberation Council from 2000 to 2004 and a representative of the Department of Language and Linguistics of CAPES [Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel] from 1995 to 1999."Text in original: "De 2000 a 2004, foi membro do Conselho Deliberativo do CNPq e, de 1995 a 1999, foi representante da área de Letras e Linguística na Capes." 16Text in original: "desde a conversa com os amigos, de preferência num bar, acompanhada de cerveja." EDA is comprised of an introduction and four chapters: 1 Why a Semantics of Discourse?; 2 The Generative Trajectory of Meaning; 3 Discursive Syntax, and 4 Discursive Semantics.The consequence of this division, which gives the discursive level a place of prominence (in detriment of the other levels of the generative trajectory 23 TN.Translation of the lines by Else Ribeiro Pires Vieira.The full reference of the work is: VIEIRA, Else Ribeiro Pires.Translation in Post-Dictatorship Brazil: A Weave of Metaphysical Voices in the Tropics.In: BALDERSTON, D.; SCHWARTZ, M. E. (Ed.).Voice-Overs: Translation and Latin American Literature.Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2002, p.207. 24Text in original: "O AUTOR NO CONTEXTO.
These three epigraphs comprehend a whole semiotics program: The theoretical pictures underneath the poetic pictures were what Fiorin was able to find in João Cabral and what he chose to work on in his textbook.

Figuras
Figuras de Retórica [Figures of Rhetoric] (FIORIN, 2014) and Argumentação program has been developed by José Luiz Fiorin in different ways and in different works for the past 26 years.