Institutional Authorship in the School Newspaper O Colegial, a Publication by Colégio Catarinense Students (1945-50)

ABSTRACT

The present paper discusses the concept of authorship in the school newspaper O Colegial - a publication by Colégio Catarinense [Santa Catarina School] students. The foundations of the Bakhtin Circle’s dialogical discourse analysis support the proposed discussion in Applied Linguistics. Data consisted of six annual editions of the newspaper published by Colégio Catarinense from 1945 to 1950, in Florianópolis - SC, and of the discursive genre imprint page. The methodology comprises the analysis of the historical dimension of the newspaper, followed by the analysis of the newspaper editions and the imprint page. Results show that, as authorship was conceived as institutional, O Colegial was not a vehicle for students to make their voices heard, as stated in the title. The axiological position of this publication was to persuade its interlocutors of the educational quality of Colégio Catarinense and to silence the voices of students who were contrary to the values of this educational institution.

KEYWORDS:
Authorship; School newspaper; Education

RESUMO

Discutimos, neste trabalho, a constituição de autoria no jornal escolar O Colegial - órgão dos alunos do Colégio Catarinense. Os fundamentos da análise dialógica do discurso do Círculo de Bakhtin respaldam a discussão proposta na Linguística Aplicada. Os dados são compostos pelas seis edições anuais desse jornal, publicadas pelo Colégio Catarinense no período de 1945-50, em Florianópolis - SC, e pelo gênero discursivo expediente. A metodologia parte da análise da dimensão histórica da publicação, seguida da análise das edições de O Colegial e do respectivo gênero. A análise revelou que O Colegial não era um dos meios de expressão da voz dos estudantes, como enunciado no seu título, pois a autoria foi concebida como institucional. A posição axiológica dessa publicação visava persuadir seus interlocutores sobre a qualidade da formação educacional do Colégio Catarinense e silenciava a voz dos estudantes que fossem contrários aos valores dessa instituição educacional.

PALAVRAS-CHAVE:
Autoria; Jornal escolar; Educação

Introduction

The present paper is part of the author’s doctoral thesis A posição axiológica do jornal escolar O Colegial (1945-1950) acerca das práticas de leitura [The axiological position of the school newspaper O Colegial (1945-1950) on reading practices] defended in UFSC, as one of the developments of the research project O ensino de língua portuguesa nas escolas de Santa Catarina no Século XX (1900 a 1980): o discurso e a práxis escolar [Teaching Portuguese in the schools of Santa Catarina in the Twentieth Century (1900 to 1980): discourse and school praxis], coordinated by PhD. Prof. Rosângela Rodrigues Hammes.

The school newspaper as an in-class or extra-class activity has been encouraged by the protagonists of the New School¹ through complementary institutions or auxiliary associations to the school since the first decades of the twentieth century (BASTOS, 2013). Based on Arroyo's research (1968), Bastos (2013) states that, in the second half of the 19th century, there were already signs of children’s and school newspapers in Brazil.

As the practice is yet present in Portuguese teaching (RUIZ, 2016, 2017b), it is valuable resourcing to Fávero (2009, p.31) to justify the relevance of investigating past school practices. According to this author, “in each epoch, the study of Portuguese language is marked by [...] economic, political and social conditions that determine the type of school and teaching, and it is necessary to know the past to understand today’s teaching and interfere better.”²

Moreover, from the Circle’s perspective, today’s discourses reenact past practices in a continuous ideological chain. Therefore, the teaching and learning of current language practices has strong links to the practices of the school sphere of old times. Such connection occurs because the word as a social and ideological sign “does not simply exist as a part of reality - it reflects and refracts another reality” (VOLOŠINOV, 1986 [1929], p.10). ³ The theoretical-methodological foundation of this paper relies on discourse studies by the Bakhtin Circle (BAKHTIN, 1981,⁴ 1986,⁵ 1990,⁶ 1984[1963],⁷ 1993[1920/1924];⁸ VOLOŠINOV, 1986[1929]),⁹ and Applied Linguistics (ACOSTA-PEREIRA, R.; RODRIGUES, H., 2014, 2015; ALVES FILHO, 2006; RODRIGUES, 2001). It also dialogues with studies on Historiography of Education, as the concept of in/transdisciplinary is adopted by Applied Lingtuistics (SAVIANI, 2013; DALLABRIDA, 2001,2012; BASTOS, 2013; AMARAL, 2013).

The following discussions are grounded on the conception of language as discourse, on dialogic relations and dialogism which are the bases of the dialogical conception of language, as well as on writings on author/authorship by the Circle. The method begins with the historical dimension in the form of discourses that influenced the school sphere when O Colegial was published which are here understood as a set of utterances. Next, regularities found through data analysis demands, comprising six editions of the school newspaper O Colegial and the discursive genre imprint page, are discussed. Finally, the axiological position of the school newspaper O Colegial and the effects of meaning that such position refracts into the texts are analyzed.

1 Author/Authorship in the Writings of the Bakhtin Circle and their Contemporary Interlocutors

The enunciative and dialogic understanding of language of the Circle postulates that verbal interaction is the reality of language, as subjects do not use use language forms removed from a sign system abstracted from social relations in their utterances. On the contrary, the social situation of language use integrates the selection of linguistic forms. Because every speaker/writer is situated into socio-ideological contexts and spheres of activities, the use of language is inseparable from this concrete situation, from speakers and their values. Therefore, language is percolated with other people’s intentions because it is living, concrete and real as discourse, and it is part of human activities.

In Bakhtin’s words (1981a, p.279), “the word is born a dialogue as a living rejoinder within it; the word is shaped in dialogic interaction with an alien word that is already in the object.”¹⁰ Consequently, discourses originate in their dialogical relation with other discourses, taking the words of others as the organizing element of their construction. Thus, for Bakhtin (1986a, p.104),¹¹ “every text has a subject or author (speaker or writer). [...] Two aspects that define the text as an utterance: its plan (intention) and the realization of this plan.”

That quote argues that there are no words without voices,; therefore, they make evident the role of the author/authorship in the production of utterances. The discussion of author/authorship in the Bakhtinian philosophy is oriented towards the artistic field, specifically for literature and the novel. Bakhtin (1990a)¹² establishes the difference between the author-person (writer, artist or the individual himself/herself) and author-creator (the one who produces the utterance). This conception broadened the traditional view of classical studies that blended the author’s position with the individual’s.

In other words, the author-creator shapes content from a specific axiological position since every cultural act lives in a given ideological setting. Considering that discursive productions are situated in spheres of human activity, the issue of signing a text as its author is regarded as more than a simple act, it indicates their recognition of the content of the act: “it is not the content of an obligation that obliges me, but my signature below it - the fact that at one time I acknowledged or undersigned the given acknowledgment” (BAKHTIN, 1993 [1920-1924], p.38).¹³ Authoring comprehends the responsiveness dimension of the author’s project of saying in the social and cultural relations established for the subjects’ specific social roles and constituted according to their membership in social groups.

Authorship can be seen both as a formal element that represents the author’s endeavor in the organization of their work and an enunciative position, that is, the author’s position. The responsive and active role of an author is expressed in terms of object and meaning because “the author is the bearer and sustainer of the intently active unity of a consummated whole (the whole of a hero and the whole of a work) which is transgredient to each and every one of its particular moments or constituent features” (BAKHTIN, 1990a, p.9).¹⁴ It is then necessary to know the entirety of the work to understand authorship, in other words, the author’s project of saying:

A work’s author is present only in the whole of the work, not in one separate aspect of this whole, and least of all in content that is severed from the whole. He is located in that inseparable aspect of the work here content and form merge inseparably, and we feel his presence most of all in form (BAKHTIN, 1986b, p.164).¹⁵

The Circle defends that the selection of linguistic resources and discourse genres is due to the author’s intentionality as the situationg of enunciation determines stylistic-compositional specificities, and choices in discourse genre mediate the situation of interaction. Thus, the structuring of every enunciation comprehends an axiological positioning and an author position as its starting point. Regarding the author-creator and his activity, Bakhtin proposes that the author outside his work is a man who lives his story. However, as an author-creator (within the work), he stands outside the chronotopes¹⁶ of the world represented by him, and his activity is composing the work itself.

Regarding the reader-listener’s chronotopic position and role as the work’s renovator, Bakhtin states only “that every literary work faces outward away from itself, toward the listener-reader, and to a certain extent thus anticipates possible reactions to itself” (BAKHTIN, 1981b, p.257; author’s italics).¹⁷ Bakhtin claims that the chronotopic dimension of utterances is extended to other domains because “every entry into the sphere of meanings is accomplished only through the gates of the chronotope” (BAKHTIN, 1981b, p.258).¹⁸ Therefore, identifying the chronotope in discursive productions such as the school newspaper O Colegial (1945-1950) can help revealing views on men, society and culture of a particular time in history, which is both an axiological and ideological view constructed from reality. According to Acosta-Pereira and Rodrigues (2014, p.189), the chronotope “[...] is, in fact, the vision field axiologically marked for [the] events [of man].”¹⁹ That highlights the need to look for the predominant or embracing chronotopes in which the school newspaper O Colegial was in by analyzing its social and historical dimensions.

Aligned to the Bakhtinian perspective, Alves Filho (2006) distinguishes the following groups of possible authorship: private and individual nature, socio-professional nature, institutional and cultural authorships. Private and individual authorship refers to cases in which the author assumes the responsibility over what he says as an individual in the every day sphere. In the socio-professional authorship, “[...] there is a superposition between the individual-position and socio-professional class so that references to the first person are also a reference to every socio-professional category to which the author is bound”.²⁰ The institutional authorship is defined as “[...] the voice that speaks and assumes conclusiveness and an axiological position. It is the voice of a company or entity with a deliberate elimination of any reference that points to the individual writer [...].”²¹ In the cultural authorship, the responsibility over the saying goes beyond individual and institutions to comprehend a broader cultural universe. This model of possible authorship is not a taxonomic classification, for Bakthin conceives of authorship as constituted in the social practices of language as proposed by The Circle’s approaches to author/authorship. Alves Filho’s proposal and the present author’s theoretical-methodological framework aided the conduction of the analysis from an external perspective to the object, that is, the notion of authorship in the school newspaper O Colegial.

2 Research Trajectory and Method

The author’s engament in researching newspapers first started at the Biblioteca Pública do Estado de Santa Catarina [Public Library of the State of Santa Catarina] (BPSC), located in the city of Florianópolis/SC, where the present researcher was informed of a project that aimed to expand its collection of newspapers in Santa Catarina: the Catálogo de Jornais Catarinenses: 1831- 2013 [Catalogue of Santa Catarina Newspapers: 1831- 2013]. Most of the material is digital and available on the Fundação Catarinense de Cultura [Santa Catarina Cultural Foundation] website as an integral part of the Hemeroteca Digital Catarinense [Santa Catarina Digital Serials].²² Six annual editions of the school newspaper O Colegial, published by Colégio Catarinense [Santa Catarina School] from 1945 to 1950 in Florianópolis - Santa Catarina, were selected from the collection. Final data comprehended 44 (forty-four) volumes from the six annual editions (Years I, II, III, IV, V, and VI).

As the research is aligned with the Bakhtin Circle’s discourse studies, it is based on methodological guidelines proposed by Vološinov (1986[1929])²³ for studying language and it assumes the school newspaper O Colegial as a set of utterances to delineate its analytical procedures. Initially, through Education Historiography studies, the discourses that implicated the school sphere of the time (SAVIANI, 2013; ROMANELLI, 20141) were analyzed. That predominant chronotope dialogues with others concerning the secondary education in Santa Catarina (DALLABRIDA, 2001, 2012), the official documents of the time as well as the production of newspaper in the educational field (BASTOS, 2013; AMARAL, 2013). Next, information available on Colégio Catarinense [Santa Catarina School] and the Catholic pedagogy was re-collected to situate the most immediate social dimension of the school newspaper O Colegial. Finally, the composition of authorship was analyzed in the editions of the newspaper from 1945-50 specifically for the the discursive genre “editorial board.”

3 The Social and Historical Dimension of O Colegial

Each social sphere has an ideological-discursive purpose and, therefore, a particular way of looking at reality. Thus, each sphere of activity produces products and discourses from a particular perspective and a given axiological position which means a specific way of signifying and refracting reality since “within the domain of signs - i.e , within the ideological sphere - profound differences exist: it is, after all, the domain of the artistic image, the religious symbol, the scientific formula, and the judicial ruling, etc.” (VOLOŠINOV, 1986 [1929], p.10).²⁴

Modern and contemporary society have instituted that the school is the site for teaching/learning of systematized knowledge and interactive practices that are considered relevant to educate the population in a given historical and social period. Nevertheless, the choice for specific knowledge and teaching methodologies indicate a particular ideology since choosing a particular pedagogy over another for teaching practices demonstrates the predominance of values that signify different axiological positions regarding education as a field and a process.

Regarding Brazilian education history, Saviani (2013) proposes that pedagogical ideas in Brazil can be divided into four periods based on the notion of predominance or hegemony. The first period (1559-1759) was characterized by the monopoly of the religious side of traditional pedagogy, which was divided into Brazilian pedagogy (1549-1599) and Jesuit pedagogy or Ratio Studiorum (1599-1759). During the second period (1759-1932), religious and lay aspects of the traditional pedagogy coexisted. In the third period (1932-1961), a new pedagogy prevailed with the following phases: the balance between traditional pedagogy and new pedagogy (1932-1947), the predominance of the new pedagogy (1947-1961), the crisis of the new pedagogy and the articulation of technical pedagogy (1961-1969). The fourth period (1969-2001) was characterized by the conception of productivist pedagogy.

According to Saviani (2013, 2015), our data dates back to the third period (1932-1961). The pedagogical discourses of the time between the Revolution of 1930 and the end of the Estado Novo²⁵ demonstrate a thin balance between influences of the traditional humanist conceptions of the Catholics and the modern conceptions of piorneers of the New Education, which promoted a type of hegemony for these two educational currents in the history of pedagogical ideas in the country (SAVIANI, 2013). These discourses are located into two different chronotopes in a dialogical relation of confrontation that are, however, part of a larger and encompassing chronotope, which is the authoritarian speech of the Vargas Regimen (1937-1945). As the Regiment enunciated the Brazilian education guidelines, it is possible to assert that the prevailing discourse aimed at implanting the project of “conservative modernization” for the Brazilian education.

Changes in educational discourse begin to occur as the democratic process was resumed in Brazil under President Dutra at the end of January 1946. The promulgation of the 1946 Constitution “characterized by the liberal spirit of its utterances” (ROMANELLI, 2014, p.175)²⁶ established (Article 5, section VI, letter ‘d’) that it was the Union’s responsibility to legislate on educational directives and bases.²⁷ According to Saviani (2013), these changes strengthened the ideologies of renewing educators and forced Catholic educators to promote changes in their educational practices.

For Saviani (2015), the Catholic pedagogy in Brazil tried to adapt to changes in the Brazilian society which were articulated, in the educational sphere, to the advances of new ideas that originated the “New Catholic School.” As “there is no neutrality of discourses since they are always marked by the valuation of a given ideology” (PEREIRA; RODRIGUES, 2014, p.178),²⁸ the Colégio Catarinense began to incorporate, in its pedagogical discourse, renovating teaching methods such as the emphasis on complementary activities and, among them, the production of the school newspaper O Colegial.

The school newspaper O Colegial (1945-1950) used to be one of the activities developed by the Cultural Association “Father Schrader.” The newspaper was produced by the principal’s office, the students, the teachers at Colégio Catarinense and former students. The first copy of this school newspaper was published in 1945. Dallabrida (2012) says that:

[...] The school year of 1945, at Colégio Catarinense, began with a new development: the launch of the first newspaper’s issue of O Colegial: a publication by students at Colégio Catarinense. The title reinforced the status of “school” obtained by the establishment of Jesuit priests in 1943; that is, from that year it began to offer two cycles of secondary education - junior and high school - determined by the Organic Law of Secondary Education (p.147).²⁹

The publication aligned with New School discourses and ideologies as well as with the educational legislation regarding the Organic Laws of Secondary Education that emphasized complementary activities. Furthermore, the Colégio Catarinense legislation reaffirmed the official federal discourse since it instituted the New School in Santa Catarina through the promulgation of Decree No. 2991, of April 28, 1944. Next, Colégio Catarinense began to incorporate into its educational discourse renovating teaching practices such as those that proposed working in groups to stimulate the students’ efforts. However, in enunciating them, it attributed the values of traditional Catholic pedagogy to maintain the axiological position in the school’s educational scenario of that time.

4 The Constitution of Authorship in O Colegial - A Publication by Colégio Catarinense Students

The first issue of the school newspaper O Colegial was published in January 1945 by the Colégio Catarinense, which tried to follow discourses of the renewing pedagogy that influenced the Brazilian academia at the time. The school newspaper was a periodical publication of Colégio Catarinense between 1945 and 1950 with monthly editions, but some issues contained two combined editions due to school breaks in the middle and at the end of each school year. To reaffirm its axiological position in the society of a Catholic institution that adopted the renewal of traditional pedagogy, Colégio Catarinense began to adopt some educational methodologies from the New School as well as from the educational legislation such as the elaboration of a school newspaper. Therefore, the project for O Colegial had not only students and parents as interlocutors, but also former students and state authorities (political, religious, educational, and journalistic, among others) as well as other individuals of the school community and society at that time (chronotope).

Since “all discourses are dialogic, for they are directed at other people, at their understanding, and at their effective or potential response. This orientation to another, to a listener, inevitably presupposes taking into account the socio-hierarchical correlation between both interlocutors” (VOLOSHINOV, 2013 [1930], p.125).³⁰ Thus, the editor board for O Colegial involved the principal’s office, teachers (the Jesuit priests), secondary school students as well as former students from Colégio Catarinense and, on occasion, ecclesiastical, civil and military authorities that integrated the school culture of that institution.

Reading the editions of O Colegial makes possible the understanding of specific regularities regarding discourse themes, such as civic and religious dates, national heroes, Catholic Church saints, school life facts, homage, sports, literature (reviews of books, poems, hymns, short stories, chronicles, plays, etc.), school memories, pedagogical and educational guidelines, extracurricular activities, leisure (jokes, cartoons, etc.), and some other pieces addressing national and international issues about values disseminated by the Colégio Catarinense and Catholic pedagogy.

As to the analysis of verbal-visual texts (see Annex), we find, on the upper section of the newspaper focused on the coat of arms of Colégio Catarinense at that time (1945), the newspaper name and an illustration of Hercílio Luz Bridge from Florianópolis, SC. The coat of arms combines the icon for Companhia de Jesus on the upper left of the header standing out to the reader. That emphasizes that the school newspaper is published by a group of people linked to the traditional Catholic education as the picture of the school facilities points out. Above it, lies the symbol for Companhia de Jesus, of the Jesuit priests, since Colégio Catarinense integrates the group of Catholic educational institutions that followed the Ignatian pedagogy. At the center, five stars are visible and the letter C is placed on the right in reference to the initials of Colégio Catarinense , indicating that the educational institution had the proper requirements to act as a School according to the educational legislation of the time. The image emphasizes that Colégio Catarinense is located geographically in Florianópolis, the capital city of Santa Catarina, hightlighting the relation between the school’s name and the word Catarinense since the people born in the state are called Catarinenses.

The school newspaper’s name is at the center of the heading and highlighted both in terms of font size and type. The name’s graphic layout at the center is divided into two parts: above, the Colégio Catarinense coat of arms, and below, the city of Florianópolis pointing out that walking down that path - Colégio Catarinense - would be a landmark in one’s personal trajectory as the institution’s ideology highlights academic dedication for future insertion in the Florianopolitan society.

The denomination O Colegial is also a reference to the period of Brazilian education in which the primary schools began to offer high school courses, which lasted three years in the following modalities: classic and scientific course. Such choice indicates that Colégio Catarinense was axiologically an institution that followed the legal dispositions of that time by offering the two levels of education of the time: middle and high school. As Colégio Catarinense followed the educational legislation of the time, the school newspaper used the word publication in the sense of periodical and printed publication, in the second part of the title: O Colegial, a publication by Colégio Catarinense students. That expression indicates that the school newspaper was a publication by students at Colégio Catarinense as it stresses the enunciator and the place of enunciation. However, as discussed later, such discourse aimed only at placing Colégio Catarinense before Santa Catarina’s society as an institution that followed the educational changes proposed by the renovators of the time.

The bridge illustration by Hercílio Luz, located in Florianópolis, is one of the symbols of the city just as the landscape displaying the sun setting by the sea. Editor information is presented in a strip below the graphic: Year 1, place of publication - Florianópolis, publication date (01/1945) and number (1). The distribution of the information on the heading followed the “instructions” of Decree No. 2.991 of April 28, 1944, which proposed: “the newspaper body comprises the following: title, locality, municipality, date, number, year and directors’ name.”³¹

Finally, the image of Santa Catarina, the school patroness, is one of the symbols of Colégio Catarinense. It is on the newspaper front page next to the Presentation. The visual sign indicates that the publication followed the Christian ideals and values of the Catholic Church (religious sphere). Below that image, there is a space dedicated to honorable mention to the following members of political, religious, educational and military social groups: Mr. Nereu Ramos, Federal Auditor in Santa Catarina; Your Excellency The Most Reverend Dom Joao Domingues de Oliveira, Metropolitan Archbishop; The Honorable Inspectors at Colégio Catarinense for middle and high school; The Reverend P., Principal at Colégio Catarinense, and other civil, military and ecclesiastical authorities of Santa Catarina.

Initial analysis of the six issues of O Colegial did not reveal any evidence of students’ authorship as enunciated in the title formed by the noun “publication,” and followed by the adjective phrase “a publication by Colégio Catarinense students.” Discourses implicate Catholic and Ignatian pedagogical values enunciated through verbal signs (newspaper’s texts) and visual signs (photos of Colégio Catarinense facilities, student activities, trips, student groups and sports, etc.). That is due to stress placed by the saying project for O Colegial on the student life at Colégio Catarinense and to the role of this educational establishment in the students’ scientific and moral education. Those underlying values were academic dedications and individual discipline which, based on Christian and nationalist values, aimed at persuading students that “that was the way” to acquire “moral and scientific education” and, therefore, to “integrate into society and have a prosperous future.”³² Such ideology permeated discourses of every edition of this newspaper, allowing the recollection of Bakhtin’s discussion on the thematic meaning of chronotope that organize the main events of narratives, that is, narratives about Colégio Catarinense. Consequently, Colégio Catarinense is considered the predominant chronotope from which utterances in O Colegial are organized, and this chronotopic dimension affects both production and understanding of its utterances.

In the analysis of 1949 editions, a relevant fact was that students and former students did not participate in the production of texts for the school newspaper as published texts were of institutional authorship exclusively (ALVES FILHO, 2006). Rereading that edition showed that one of the pieces in the column by Grêmio Padre Schrader (O COLEGIAL, n.7, 1949, p.2) was authored by a professor whose saying project was to convince students to participate in the activities of that study group as well as in the school newspaper. When comparing this edition with those from 1945 to 1948, in which students participated as authors as long as they followed the Colégio Catarinense’s choices of topics, it was relevant to investigate the reasons that may have led to an apparent silencing of the students’ voices starting in 1949.

New analysis of editions of O Colegial from 1945 to 1948 ensued. Reading these editions highlights that in spite of the different voices enunciated in the texts (Colégio Catarinense direction, teachers, secondary school students, former students as well as occasional Catarinense authorities) (RUIZ, 2017c), discourses endorse the axiological position of Colégio Catarinense. That characterizes institutional authorship (ALVES FILHO, 2006): “[...] the voice that speaks and assumes conclusiveness and axiological position is the one of a company or entity, with a deliberate deletion of any reference that points to individual writers [...].”³³

That information led to the analizis of the imprint page in the issues of 1945 to 1950 of the school newspaper, based on the reasoning that as discursive productions are located in the spheres of human activity, the issue of authorship of a text is not seen as a simple act because it indicates the recognition of the content of the act: “it is not the content of an obligation that obliges me, but my signature below it - the fact that at one time I acknowledged or undersigned the given acknowledgment” (BAKHTIN, 1993 [1920-1924], p.38).³⁴ Signing of pieces encompasses the dimension of responsiveness to the author’s saying project embedded in the social and cultural relations. They are established within certain social roles and constituted in accordance to their insertion in social groups.

3.1 The Imprint Page as Discursive Genre

The analysis of the imprint page showed that it was published only in Year II of O Colegial, in 1946, in the third issue. Starting with that issue, it becomes a regular section of the publication, namely in 1947, 1948, 1949 and 1950. The first imprint page (1946, p.2) provided information shown in Table 1. In that year, a group of people with different roles was responsible for the editorial line of the school newspaper.

Table 1
First Imprint Page of O Colegial (1946)

IMPRINT

O COLEGIAL

Colégio Catarinense Students’ Publication

Principal: Hélio Milton Pereira

Manager: Alfredo Zimmer

Writers: Hélio Saciolotti de Oliveira Edio Jose Tomolli Deoclécio Rodrigues

Writing: Colégio Catarinense

• Source:O Colegial, iss.3, 1946, p.2.

The information remained unchanged until the second issue of 1947, when the name of the Principal changed and the positions and respective names of managers and editors stopped appearing. They emphasized that the school newspaper was “under the responsibility of the Board of Directors,” according to Table 2.

Table 2
Second Imprint Page of O Colegial (1947)

EXPEDIENTE

O COLEGIAL

Colégio Catarinense Students’ Publication

Under the responsibility of the Board of Directors

Principal: Cid Gomes

Manager: Alfredo Zimmer

Writing: Colégio Catarinense

• Source:O Colegial, iss..2, 1947, p.2.

In 1948, the fourth year of publication, a new information is found on the imprint page, as as the roles of Principal and Manager and their respective names are removed, reaffirming that the publication is under the “responsibility of the Board of Directors,” according to Table 3.

Table 3
Last Imprint page of O Colegial (1948)

EXPEDIENTE

O COLEGIAL

Colégio Catarinense Students’ Publication

Under the responsibility of the Board of Directors

Writing: Colégio Catarinense

• Source:O Colegial, n.4, 1948, p.2.

Imprint pages did not suffer any additional changes in the following years, 1949 and 1950, and only few texts by students were found in the newspaper. The analysis showed that the change of the people responsible for the publication affected the selection of texts to be published. The data and analysis of the issues of O Colegial revealed that albeit its first issue, in 1945, claimed that the school newspaper was developed to give voice to the students and to depict the institution as following the pedagogical discourse of renewal of the time, the publication actually defended the traditional Catholic pedagogy discourse. The authoritarian word prevailed, and authorship was under the responsibility of the Board of Directors.

Data analysis indicated there was a selection of utterances conveyed by the publication, but in the early years (1945 and 1946) there used to be more freedom of speech than in 1947, when the newspaper was “Under the responsibility of the Board of Directors.” Moreover, despite the country’s redemocratization and Constituent Assembly of 1946, which started a process of economic and cultural renewal, the normative discourse once again prevailed in the school sphere. Geraldi (2010, pp.21-27) discusses the relationship between language reflection and power in Brazil from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day. In this period, it is worth highlighting the author’s position regarding the redemocratization of 1945 and Constitution of 1946 [see chapter 4 of Ruiz (2017c)]. According to him, “regarding language, there is a need to correct (or to silence). The grammars still published today are from that period (except Rocha Lima’s, which is from a little earlier.”³⁵ The context explain, to a certain degree, the changes occurred in the imprint page and utterances in the school newspaper, which was initially aimed to give voice to students (1945-46) as it was influenced by the renovating current of the New School. However, later on the utterances are placed under the control of O Colegial written discourses (1947-50) due to the new position of Colégio Catarinense regarding the historical context of the country at the time.

Final Considerations

The initial proposal of O Colegial was for the school newspaper to represent the voices of the students and the educational institution (Colégio Catarinense) in accordance with the educational discourses (New School) and official legislation of the time that reaffirmed the ideologies of renovating educators. This publication saying project is stated in the Presentation: “approaching school life, establishing greater closeness with students and school community, encouraging the literary culture, establishing a link between individuals’ theory and practice, specially, helping students in the ‘difficult art of writing,’promoting literary exchange and bearing former students’ memories.”³⁶ The pedagogical discourse on the role of the school newspaper is coherent with the guidelines proposed by the New School movement, which shows that the institution tried to adopt relevant educational trends for that historical moment.

However, discourses in the 1945 and 1946 issues aimed only at persuading interlocutors that the Catholic education was renewed because it incorporated the renewal discourse of that time once the values of the Ignatian pedagogy were maintained. In 1947 those discourses started to gradually change over the years until the reaffirmation of the newspaper as an institutional school newspaper based on ideologies and values of the traditional Catholic pedagogy. Such interpretation derives from the topics published in the 1948 edition onwards, and the limited participation of students not only in the organization of the newspaper, as stated in the first imprint page, but also in the authorship of texts published between 1949 and 1950, when the last issue of the school newspaper was published.

Grounded on the theoretical discussion on author/authorship by the Bakhtin Circle, the authorship in O Colegial is constituted as institutional, and it is defined as “[...] the voice that speaks and assumes the conclusiveness and axiological position. It is the voice of a company or entity that deliberately erased any reference that points to the individual writer [...]” (ALVES FILHO, 2006, p.20).³⁷ Thus, the axiological position seen in the school newspaper was built so as to persuade students and interlocutors of Colégio Catarinense’s educational proposal: traditional Ignatian pedagogy and nationalist values of that historical time for the Brazilian society. Such a discourse, intended to demonstrate that Colégio Catarinense was the best option for students’ educational, intellectual and moral formation, focused on preparing them to higher education and, consequently, their professional future in the Catarinense society, and on silencing students’ voices contrary to these values.

• 1
  According to Saviani (2013), Lourenço Filho was one of the primary disseminators and advocates of the pedagogical ideas of New School in Brazil. In Introdução ao Estudo da Escola Nova [Introduction to the Study of the New school] (1930), Lourenço Filho explains what must be understood by New School and its scientific bases on these proposals: the studies of biology, psychology, and sociology.
• 2
  Text in Portuguese: “em cada época, o estudo de Língua Portuguesa é marcado pelas condições [...] econômicas, políticas e sociais que determinam o tipo de escola e de ensino, e para que possamos melhor compreender o ensino de hoje e melhor interferir, é necessário que conheçamos o passado.”
• 3
  VOLOŠINOV, V. N. Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Translated by Landislav Matejka and I. R. Titunik. Cambrigde, MA: Harvard University Press, 1986.
• 4
  BAKHTIN, M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981 (University of Texas Press Slavic Series, No. 1).
• 5
  BAKHTIN, M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by V. W. McGee. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1986.
• 6
  BAKHTIN, M. Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Edited by Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, translated with notes by Vadim Liapunov, supplement translated by Kenneth Brostrom. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1990.
• 7
  BAKHTIN, M. Problems of Dostoevisky’s Poetics. Translated by Caryl Emerson. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1984.
• 8
  BAKHTIN, M. Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Translated by Vadim Liapunov. Ed. Michael Holquist & Vadim Liapunov. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press Slavic Series, 1993.
• 9
  For reference, see ^{footnote 3}.
• 10
  BAKHTIN, M. Discourse in the Novel. In: BAKHTIN, M. The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981a. pp.259-422. (University of Texas Press Slavic Series, No. 1).
• 11
  BAKHTIN, M. The Problem of the Text in Linguistics, Philology, and the Human Sciences: An Experiment in Philosophical Analysis. In: BAKHTIN, M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by V. W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986a, pp.103-131.
• 12
  BAKHTIN, M. Author and Hero in the Aesthetic Activity. In: BAKHTIN, M. Art and Answerability: Early Philosophical Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Edited by Michael Holquist and Vadim Liapunov, translated with notes by Vadim Liapunov, supplement translated by Kenneth Brostrom. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1990a. pp.04-256.
• 13
  For reference, see ^{footnote 8}.
• 14
  For reference, see ^{footnote 12}.
• 15
  BAKHTIN, M. Toward a Methodology for the Human Sciences. In: BAKHTIN, M. Speech Genres and Other Late Essays. Translated by V. W. McGee. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1986b, pp.159-172.
• 16
  Bakhtin (1981, pp.84-258) understands that social situations of interaction are constituted by an instance of definite time and space, the chronotope. Therefore, he investigated the novel’s discourses to understand the representativeness of social experiences, historically and culturally constructed from the artistic-literary chronotope.
• 17
  BAKHTIN, M. Forms of Time and of the Chronotope in the Novel. In: The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays by M. M. Bakhtin. Translated by Caryl Emerson and Michael Holquist. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1981b. pp.84-258. (University of Texas Press Slavic Series, No. 1).
• 18
  For reference, see ^{footnote 17}.
• 19
  Text in Portuguese: “[...] é, de fato, o campo de visão axiologicamente marcado para [os] eventos [do homem].”
• 20
  Text in Portuguese : “[...] há uma superposição entre posição-indivíduo e a classe sócio profissional, de modo que as referências a primeira pessoa são também uma referência a toda classe socio-profissional ao qual o autor se vincula.”
• 21
  Text in Portuguese: “[...] a voz que fala e assume a conclusividade e a posição axiológica é a voz de uma empresa ou entidade, havendo deliberadamente o apagamento a qualquer referência que aponte para o redator individual [...]”.
• 22
  This project was developed by the librarian Alzemi Machado in partnership with the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina [Santa Catarina State University] (UDESC).
• 23
  For reference, see ^{footnote 3}.
• 24
  For reference, see ^{footnote 3}.
• 25
  “Estado Novo, (Portuguese: ‘New State’), dictatorial period (1937-45) in Brazil during the rule of President Getúlio Vargas, initiated by a new constitution issued in November 1937” (ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA, 2018. Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/Estado-Novo-Brazilian-history).
• 26
  Text in Portuguese: “caracterizada pelo espírito liberal de seus enunciados.”
• 27
  According to Saviani (2013), the renovating educators were invited by the Education and Health Minister, Clemente Mariani, to join a commission with other Catholic educators to elaborate a draft for the Lei de Diretrizes e Bases da Educação Nacional (LDB) [Law of Directives and Bases of National Education]. The project generated numerous debates and obstacles due to ideological differences between traditional educators and renovators. Thus, the approval of the first LDB was delayed to December 20, 1961, and only came into force in 1962.
• 28
  Text in Portuguese: “não [há] neutralidade dos discursos, uma vez que estes são sempre marcados pela valoração de uma dada ideologia.”
• 29
  Text in Portuguese : “[...] O ano letivo de 1945, no Colégio Catarinense, iniciou com uma novidade: o lançamento do primeiro número do jornal O Colegial: órgão dos alunos do Colégio Catarinense”. O título reforçava o status de ‘colégio’ conseguido pelo estabelecimento dos padres jesuítas em 1943, ou seja, a partir daquele ano ele passava a oferecer os dois ciclos do ensino secundário - ginasial e colegial - determinados pela Lei Orgânica do Ensino Secundário.”
• 30
  VOLOSHINOV, V. The Construction of the Utterance. In: SHUKMAN, A. (Ed.). Bakhtin School papers. Trad. Noel Owen. Somerton: Old School House, 1983, pp.114-138. (Russian Poetics Translation; 10).
• 31
  Text in Portuguese: “o corpo do jornal compreende o seguinte: o título, a localidade, o município, a data, o número, o ano e o nome dos dirigentes.”
• 32
  Text in Portuguese: “esse era o caminho”; “a formação moral e científica”; “poder se integrar na sociedade e ter um futuro próspero.”
• 33
  Text in Portuguese: “[...] a voz que fala e assume a conclusividade e a posição axiológica é a voz de uma empresa ou entidade, havendo deliberadamente o apagamento a qualquer referência que aponte para o redator individual [...].”
• 34
  For reference, see ^{footnote 8}.
• 35
  Text in Portuguese: “em termos de língua, reencontra-se a necessidade de corrigir (ou fazer calar). São desse período as gramáticas ainda hoje editadas (com exceção de Rocha Lima, um pouco anterior.”
• 36
  Text in Portuguese: “abordar a vida colegial, estabelecer uma maior proximidade com os estudantes e a comunidade escolar, incentivar a cultura das letras, estabelecer um elo entre a teoria das disciplinas e a prática, principalmente auxiliando os alunos na ‘difícil arte de escrever’, promover o intercâmbio literário e ser o portador das lembranças dos antigos alunos.”
• 37
  Text in Portuguese: “[...] a voz que fala e assume a conclusividade e a posição axiológica é a voz de uma empresa ou entidade, havendo deliberadamente o apagamento a qualquer referência que aponte para o redator individual [...]” (ALVES FILHO, 2006, p.20).

ANNEX

Fig 1: O COLEGIAL, Florianópolis, jan. 1945, n. 1, Ano I, p.1.

REFERÊNCIAS

• ALVES FILHO, F. A autoria institucional nos editoriais de jornais. Alfa, São Paulo , v. 50, n. 1, p.77-89, 2006.
• AMARAL, G. Reflexões sobre a produção de jornais estudantis em escolas de ensino secundário (1930-1960): a contribuição da obra Jornais escolares de Guerino Casasanta. In: VII Congresso Brasileiro de História da Educação Cuiabá: UFMT, 2013. v.1. p.1-11.
• ARROYO, L. Literatura infantil brasileira: ensaios de preliminares para a sua história e suas fontes. São Paulo: Melhoramentos, 1968.
• BAKHTIN, M. O discurso na poesia e o discurso no romance. In BAKHTIN, M. Questões de literatura e de estética: a teoria do romance. Trad. Aurora Fornoni Bernardini et al 4. ed. São Paulo: UNESP: Hucitec, 1998, p.85-106.
• BAKHTIN, M. Formas de tempo e de cronotopo no romance. In BAKHTIN, M. Questões de literatura e de estética: a teoria do romance. Trad. Aurora Fornoni Bernardini et al 4. ed. São Paulo: UNESP: Hucitec, 1998, p.211-362.
• BAKHTIN, M. O autor e o herói na atividade estética. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal Trad. Paulo Bezerra. 4. ed. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2003, p.3-20.
• BAKHTIN, M. O problema do texto na linguística, na filosofia e em outras ciências humanas. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal Trad. Paulo Bezerra. 4. ed. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2003, p.307-335.
• BAKHTIN, M. Metodologia das ciências humanas. In: BAKHTIN, M. Estética da criação verbal. Estética da criação verbal Trad. Paulo Bezerra. 4. ed. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 2003, p.393-410.
• BAKHTIN, M. Problemas da poética de Dostoiévski Trad. Paulo Bezerra. 4. ed. Rio de Janeiro: Forense Universitária, 2008.
• BAKHTIN, M. Para uma filosofia do ato responsável Tradução aos cuidados de Valdemir Miotello e Carlos Alberto Faraco. São Carlos: Pedro & João, 2010.
• BASTOS, M. Escritas estudantis em periódicos escolares. Revista Educação, Porto Alegre, v.10, n. 40, p.7-10, 2013.
• DALLABRIDA, N. A fabricação escolar das elites: o Ginásio Catarinense na primeira República. Florianópolis: Cidade Futura, 2001.
• DALLABRIDA, N. Usos sociais da cultura escolar prescrita no ensino secundário. Revista Brasileira de História da Educação, Campinas, SP, v. 12, n. 1 (28), p.167-192, 2012.
• FÁVERO, L. História da disciplina português na escola brasileira. Diadorim: revista de estudos linguísticos e literários. Rio de Janeiro, n. 6, p.13-35, 2009.
• GERALDI, J. Tranças do poder, dança dos letrados: a infatigável tarefa de frear a língua. In: GERALDI, J. A aula como como acontecimento São Carlos, SP: Pedro & Editores, 2010, p.13-27.
• MACHADO, A.; MARCELINO, R. (Org.) Catálogo de jornais catarinenses: 1831-2013. 2. ed. Florianópolis: FCC, 2014.
• O COLEGIAL (Colégio Catarinense - Florianópolis). 1945-1950.
• ROMANELLI, O. História da educação no Brasil (1930/1973) Faculdade de Educação da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. 8. ed. Petrópolis, RJ: Editora Vozes, 2014.
• RUIZ, T. O projeto didático do jornal escolar no ensino crítico de linguagem. Caminhos de Linguística Aplicada Taubaté, SP, vol. 15, n.2, p.1-20, 2016.
• RUIZ, T. Diretrizes metodológicas na análise dialógica do discurso: o olhar do pesquisador iniciante. Revista Diálogos, v. 5, n. 1, p.39-59, 2017a.
• RUIZ, T. O jornal escolar De olho no carva: uma experiência de ensino e aprendizagem de escrita. Linguagem em Foco, v.9, p.115-135, 2017b.
• RUIZ, T. A posição axiológica do jornal escolar O Colegial acerca das práticas de leitura Tese (doutorado) - Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Centro de Comunicação e Expressão, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística, Florianópolis, 2017.
• SANTA CATARINA. Decreto n.2991, 28 de abril de 1944. Arquivo Público do Estado de Santa Catarina.
• SAVIANI, D. História das ideias pedagógicas no Brasil 4 ed. Campinas, SP: Autores Associados, 2013.
• SAVIANI, D. A trajetória da pedagogia católica no Brasil: da hegemonia à renovação pela mediação da resistência ativa. In: SAVIANI, D. História do tempo e tempo da história: estudos de historiografia e história da educação. Campinas, SP: Autores Associados, 2015. p.55-67.
• VOLÓCHINOV, V. (Do Círculo) Marxismo e filosofia da linguagem Problemas fundamentais do método sociológico na ciência da linguagem. Trad. Sheila Grillo e Ekaterina Vólkova Américo. São Paulo: Ed. 34, 2017.
• VOLOCHÍNOV, V. (Do Círculo). A construção da enunciação. In VOLOCHÍNOV, V. Trad. João Wanderley Geraldi. A construção da enunciação e outros ensaios São Carlos, SP: Pedro &Editores. 2013. p.157-188.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Jan-Mar 2019

History

• Received
  12 Dec 2017
• Accepted
  02 Nov 2018