Discourses and affects of Brazilian oratory in the 20th and 21st centuries

• Grant number: 25/00665-0
• Support Opportunities: Regular Research Grants
• Start date: August 01, 2025
• End date: July 31, 2028
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Félix Piovezani Filho
• Grantee: Carlos Félix Piovezani Filho
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

The project aims to analyze the discursive functioning of Brazilian public speaking manuals published in the 20th and 21st centuries, focusing mainly on the production of effects and affections of the fear of public speaking. Our proposal consists of describing and interpreting statements in which discourses materialize that deal jointly or separately with insecurities, fears, anxieties, phobias, and dread of public speaking, as well as its comfort or control, its reduction or overcoming, considering its constitution, its formulation, and its circulation. We will base our work on discourse analysis, derived from M. Pêcheux and his group, and on contributions from the history of linguistic ideas, the history of sensibilities, and M. Foucault's reflections on discourse. Based on their postulates and methods, we will answer questions such as the following: what is the evidence of fear of public speaking in speeches in contemporary Brazilian public speaking manuals, and how is it constructed? In which discursive positions are their enunciators inscribed? What do they say about this fear when they relate its forms to who is speaking, who is speaking to, and who is speaking about the different genres of discourse and their different listening regimes? What linguistic forms and resources do their authors use to produce effects of the fear of speaking in public and alleviate, diminish, control, or eliminate it? What are the images of enunciators and enunciates in these manuals, and how are they constructed? What are preserves, taken up, reformulated, or erased from the discourses of fear in treatises and compendiums of ancient and modern rhetoric? In order to formulate answers to these and other questions, we will analyze statements from 12 (twelve) oratory manuals published in Brazil by national authors between the 20th and 21st centuries. (AU)