Work songs: a discoursive and ergological approach

• Grant number: 12/00509-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctorate
• Effective date (Start): April 01, 2012
• Effective date (End): January 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Applied Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Maria Cecília Pérez de Souza-E-Silva
• Grantee: Ana Raquel Motta de Souza
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Comunicação, Letras e Artes. Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo (PUC-SP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 13/03324-1 - Work songs in Latin America, BE.EP.PD

Abstract

This project aims at investigating the discursive functioning of the work songs, initially understood as those that are sung while one works. The hypothesis is that the analysis of an object like this can shed light on topics such as work as activity, the discursive relationship between collectivity and individuality, the literary-musical discourse - especially the songs - and the linguistic and discursive place of the paremiological field, in which the work songs have been included, along with other similar objects (rimes, riddles, ballads, rhymes). The theoretical-methodological basement is the French line of the discourse analysis, with emphasis on developments of this discipline given by Dominique Maingueneau's approuch (aphorising enunciation, constituent discourse, intersemiotic discursive practices, discursive community, scenes of the enunciation). The vision of work is the one from ergology, an interdisciplinary approach, that takes it as a human activity, positioning before the world, the requirements prescribed, the group and the individual. The approach of the literary-musical object will be based on the device developed by Luiz Tatit (known as semiotics of the song), among other discursive studies of the song. An internship abroad at the University of Texas at Austin is expected, because the U.S. is the country with the greatest tradition in the world in the research of "work songs". As results, one expects to reach a characterization and discursive and ergological analysis of the Brazilian work song, to be presented at national and international congresses of discourse, ergology and ethnomusicology, always with the publication of papers and, possibly, a book.