Reading and Anxiety: An analysis of this emotion in discourses about this practice

• Grant number: 25/05137-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: June 01, 2025
• End date: May 31, 2026
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Luzmara Curcino Ferreira
• Grantee: Ricardo José Liani Filho
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This research proposal for Scientific Initiation is a continuation of the project "Proud Readers, Ashamed Readers: Emotions in Discourses about Reading" (FAPESP 2020/03615-0), dedicated to the survey and analysis of statements in which pride or shame related to reading were evoked. Aiming to expand and deepen the analysis of the discursive materialization of emotions when referring to reading, the reader, or the book, in this research we will focus on a specific emotion: anxiety. In a preliminary mapping of texts where reading was associated with anxiety, we have generically identified two major types of texts: those in which reading is represented as a beneficial practice in combating anxiety and those, although fewer, in which reading is the source or cause of anxiety. In this research, we foresee the work of surveying a representative corpus of this aspect, that is, the relationship between reading and the emotion of anxiety as expressed in contemporary texts, gathered through digital searches using various machines and search engines, employing the following keyword pairs: reading/anxiety; reader/anxiety; book/anxiety. Our expectation is to obtain a significant set of texts that will allow us to qualify and classify them into groups based on regularities in what they enunciate, how they enunciate, and the intended effects of what is enunciated when reading is articulated with the feeling of anxiety. For this survey and the constitution of a corpus to be used collectively in research at the Laboratory for Reading Studies (LIRE-CNPq/UFSCar), focusing on the analysis of emotions in their functioning in discourses about reading, we will base our work on principles of Discourse Analysis, especially from the reflections of Michel Foucault (1999), principles of the Cultural History of Reading according to Roger Chartier (1998; 2002), and the Sociology of Cultural Distinction according to Pierre Bourdieu (1990; 1999), as well as reflections in the field of the History of Sensibilities dedicated to anxiety, such as those conducted by Jean-Jacques Courtine (2016). We will also refer to studies conducted in Brazil by different researchers dedicated to contemporary discourses about reading, namely, by Abreu (2001), Barzotto and Brito (1998), Curcino (2020, 2022), among others. (AU)