The essay as a turning point in academic and scientific writing: subjectivity, event and form

• Grant number: 23/07165-7
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: July 01, 2023
• End date: March 31, 2025
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Applied Linguistics
• Principal Investigator: Manoel Luiz Gonçalves Corrêa
• Grantee: João Vitor Moreira
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 22/05908-0 - University learners in contemporary practices of scientific and academic literacy for the training of teachers an globalized researchers, AP.TEM

Abstract

The project topic is the configuration of the academic essay in relation to its thematic choices, its argumentative structure and the required participation of the self as the one who ensures a position in a given field of knowledge. It investigates, in the given genre, its aesthetic dimension and its property of producing the novelty through the assertion of a point of view, regarded as "new". The project is firstly justified by the high presence of essay-like texts in several domains. The second justification is the defense of the heterogeneity in manners of doing science as a response the dominant scientific models. Third, the current project is justified by the understanding that, when sharing traits with other academic and scientific genres, the essay becomes an effective educational resource. Finally, the fourth justification is the filling of a gap in academic literacy studies: instead of searching to reproduce a unique way of writing in the academic context (the most common concern), searching to understand why it is reproduced as the only one. The research question is: could the essay have a role as a guide to academic and scientific writing in an aesthetic approach and as a resource to spark critical thinking in Humanities? The hypothesis is that, given its resistance to strict standardization, the essay would allow, in an educational context, questioning the relations of dominance and subordination in science. Standing in an Applied Linguistics perspective, our theoretical framework articulates principles of French Discourse Analysis with contributions from Bakhtin's Circle. In one section, research material includes reports produced by students after reading samples of academic essays. The other section includes 15 essays collected from three fields of knowledge: Linguistics, Education, and Journalism - 5 essays in each one. The methodology involves seizing, in the material that composes those two sections, representations about the relationship between - on one side - the essay as a genre and the academic and scientific writing in general, and - on the other one - the imposition of truth models and of control of subjectivity. As an expected contribution, I assume that considering the aesthetic potentiality of the essay would enable the questioning of the reproducibility logics of science and broaden the discussion about the scientific work.