Histórias orais de ribeirinhos do Rio Juruá: um estudo sistémico-funcional de gênero e de discurso

Abstract

This research of riverine oral stories on the Juruá River, in the towns of the States of Acre and Amazonas, has as its main objective to investigate, by way of a genre study, linguistic aspects that characterize the participants and the sociocultural context in which the stories are told. The texts were analyzed observing the stages and phases that compose their schematic structure as a form of the generic configuration, and the most frequent lexicogrammatical occurrences, in the search for meanings that drive the stories; therefore the flow of Information in its linguistic structure for the understanding of the message was verified. To reach these objectives, the theoretical framework of Systemic Functional Linguistics, proposed by Halliday (1978, 1985, 1994) and later developed and enhanced by foliowers, such as Eggins (1994, 2002) and Martin and Rose (2007, 2008) was used. The quantitative analysis was done with the support of Corpus Linguistics (BERBER SARDINHA, 2004) methodological tools, using the computational program WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2009) specifically the applications: WordList and Concordance. In the qualitative analysis, for the characterization of the genre, the obligatory stages Complication and Resolution (MARTIN; ROSE, 2008) were considered. In them 13 narratives were analyzed and one anecdote, using the studies in Oral Literature by Cascudo (2004) as a base, which made possible, systematically, the typological identification (schematic structure of the genre in stages and phases) and topological grouping (the relation among various genre of the same category). The corpus of the study was composed of fourteen oral texts, represented by the samples of the Mapinguari legend, were characterized as a microgenre within Oral Stories, and aims to entertain, care for, orient, and warn listeners about the dangers of the forest. The type of story, represented by forest stories, and categorized by 12 different legends and it was characterized as the macrogenre Stories. An analysis using the discursive system of Periodicity (MARTIN; ROSE, 2007) allowed for the comprehension of the regular flow of Information in the texts isolating items such as names, markers, conjunctives, continuatives and verbs. The lexical choices represented by elements of the spoken language create a portrait of the participants (riverine dwellers), the sociocultural context (the forest) and characterize the riverine discourse. These results open possibilities for other studies, such as those that will record the stories for projects and use in the classrooms and scholarly contexts of the region, as a form of dissemination, valuing and preserving the riverine culture.