A study of the internal organization of minimal topic segments in reader's letters published in newspapers of the State of São Paulo in the 21st Century

• Grant number: 15/03167-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: June 01, 2015
• End date: August 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Agreement: Coordination of Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES)
• Principal Investigator: Eduardo Penhavel de Souza
• Grantee: Gabriela Andrade de Oliveira
• Host Institution: Instituto de Biociências, Letras e Ciências Exatas (IBILCE). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de São José do Rio Preto. São José do Rio Preto , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/51787-5 - Project for the History of Paulista Brazilian Portuguese, AP.TEM

Abstract

This research project is part of a current thematic project financed by FAPESP, named "Projeto de história do português paulista II", also called "Projeto caipira II". Within this thematic project, the supervisor of the current proposal has developed a research on the process of topic organization, under the perspective of Text-Interactive Grammar. The research of the supervisor has the purpose of analyzing the historical development of the process of topic organization in the different genres studied by the thematic project. The current proposal is organized as a subproject of the research conducted by the supervisor. In his research, the supervisor has concluded the analysis of reader's letters published in newspapers of the State of São Paulo in the 19th century. In association with such an analysis, the purpose of the current proposal is (i) to analyze reader's letters published in newspapers of the State of São Paulo in the 21st century and (ii) to compare these letters with letters published in the 19th century. More specifically, the proposal focuses on a particular aspect of topic organization, namely, the internal organization of minimal topic segments. Guerra & Penhavel (2010) have demonstrated that the internal organization of minimal topic segments in reader's letters published in the 19th century is a systematic process, which can be described in terms of a general rule. In this sense, the purpose of the current proposal is to analyze whether letters of the 21st century are also governed by a general rule of organization as it is the case with letters of the 19th century. The proposed investigation will follow an empiric method and it will be a qualitative research. The corpus of analysis will be composed by letters of different newspapers published in the State of São Paulo, what will include, at least, the newspapers called "Folha de S. Paulo" and "O Estado de S. Paulo". (AU)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

OLIVEIRA, Gabriela Andrade de. The internal organization of minimal topic segments in reader’s letters published in newspapers of São Paulo State in the 21st century. 2016. Master's Dissertation - Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Instituto de Biociências Letras e Ciências Exatas. São José do Rio Preto São José do Rio Preto.