Punctuation in the virtual context: a study of its functioning in comments of news and reportages

• Grant number: 14/03827-6
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: September 01, 2014
• End date: August 31, 2015
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Portuguese Language
• Principal Investigator: Ana Carolina Sperança Criscuolo
• Grantee: Ariane Cristina de Araújo Parada
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Due to the advent of the Internet, knowledge, information and diverging opinions are propagated in a quick and heterogeneous manner, through the new textual genres that arise in the virtual domain. According to Marcuschi (2002, p. 02), the electronic speeches constitute a vast range of analysis possibilities, especially regarding the "effect of the new technologies on the language and the role of the language in these technologies". From this statement, we propose in this research to analyze "comments" related to news from the newspapers "O Estado de São Paulo" e "Folha de São Paulo" and the magazines "Veja" e "Contigo" (online versions), in order to verify the use of the ponctuation in this textual genre typical of the virtual domain. We intend, from this, to investigate if there is a relation between the notice content/theme, the reader public (comment's author) and the use of ponctuation, establishing a socio-cultural analysis of the linguistic phenomenon studied. We expect that this research bring contributions to the ponctuation teaching (focusing on the activities of text comprehension and production) from a functionalist perspective, aiming the characteristics and needs of the virtual context, so evident nowadays.