Os memes na construção identitária do professor de língua inglesa: um ressoar de vozes no Facebook

Abstract

Online social networks have become an environment of construction and expression of identities and values in contemporary times. As part of this web culture, memes are easily associated as particles of cultural transmission, indicating behaviors that are replicated through imitation and interfering – above all – on the way we see and express ourselves in the world. The present study intends to discuss cultural identities of English language teachers that are constructed from the way they express themselves on Facebook memes. The research has a qualitative and interpretative nature and is situated within the area of Applied Linguistics with its theoretical framework designed by the triad Facebook / identity / language. Thus, this study is based on a social and historical model of language of the Circle of Bakhtin and presents an interface with the Cultural Studies (Hall, Bauman, Woodward). Research data was gathered from 5 memes shared by 4 English language teachers on 4 Facebook fan pages: Profissão Professor, Professor Sofredor, Professora Sincera and Professora Indelicada. The discursive analysis of the memes reveal that the “other” is essential on the construction of the English language teacher identity, taking into account that the identity is built upon an incessant dialogical process of online and offline interconnected social voices. The utterances show that in this process of Facebook cultural identities negotiation, the English language teacher has been sharing his/her own image as "dethroned" and "profaned" by contemporary society as an underpaid professional when compared to other professions, who has no prestige, who is oppressed by the ruling class and is therefore misunderstood by students and society in general. However, such assertions reveal a danger: what is socially shared becomes powerful and earns truth status. Therefore, it is crucial to avoid these discourses of outdateness and of social discredit, which are anchored in a long sociohistorical and cultural process. Maybe, we can gradually change them.