A construção de sentido em textos multimodais: uma análise dos processos conceptuais a partir da leitura de charges sobre a Copa do Mundo 2014

Abstract

This study is based on the theoretical principles of Cognitive Linguistics and aims to investigate how conceptualization processes take place as students read cartoons related to the 2014 Football World Cup. Assuming that conceptualizing consist of mental processe that allow the organization and understanding of the world through each subject’s perceptual and social experiences in a particular environment, it is necessary to resort to categorization notions (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1999), Idealized Cognitive Models - imagetic schemes (JOHNSON, 1987; LAKOFF, 1987), propositional models (LAKOFF, 1987) and metonymic and metaphoric models (LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1980; LAKOFF, 1987; FELTES, 2007) - and inferences (LAKOFF, 1993). For this study, the selected corpus is composed of fifteen (15) texts produced by 2nd grade students attending a night class in a public high school, located in Natal / RN. Given the theoretical framework and the nature of the data, a qualitative methodology is adopted (CASSEL; SYMON, 1994; GOLDENBERG, 1999) supported by introspection analysis (TALMY, 2005), departing from the researcher’s individual perceptions about an object to be studied. Based on the analysis, we verify that the interaction between verbal and visual elements arranged in cartoons act as guides in meaning making and involve different perceptions rooted in individual and shared knowledge among students. Moreover, the textual productions reveal that some students go beyond the understanding of the clues provided by the multimodal texts, highlighting the importance of Idealized Cognitive Models (LAKOFF, 1987) in the grounds of this research. Thus, it confirms the cognitivist assumption that the conceptualization and hence the construction of inferences are complex cognitive activities that involve embodied and social experiences.