Dialogical analysis of publicity by UNICEF and Maurício de Sousa: children’s rights.

Author(s)

Monique de Almeida Neves Rodrigues

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Araraquara. 2018-03-13.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp). Faculdade de Ciências e Letras. Araraquara
• Defense date: 2018-01-25
• Advisor: Marina Célia Mendonça

Abstract

This research aims to analyze dialogically a set of advertisements signed by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) along with Maurício de Sousa, an acclaimed Brazilian cartoonist know for having created the Monica’s Gang. In these advertisements, the characters from Monica’s Gang approach the subject of children’s rights, a very socially relevant theme in Brazil. The selected theoretical basis of the research comprehends the discourse studies by The Bakhtin Circle, as it is our goal to identify how the ideological values pertaining to children’s rights in the country are materialized in this campaign. It is also our goal to answer other questions, such as: what is the recipient of the advertisements? Considering the verbal-visual nature of the corpus, how is childhood represented? Which discourses can be identified in the advertisements and which realm of human activity are the originally from? Having set those goals, we work with a few Bakhtinian concepts which enable us to do the analysis as we further develop our own theoretical understanding of the studies by the Circle. The concepts of concrete utterance, sphere of activity, author, genres of speech and recipient are fundamental for the development of this research. The analysis shows the presence of a double recipient, both adults and children, which demands further investigation. Evidence of a gradual change in the studied discourse genre were also found, indicating a growing preference for non-verbal discourse in detriment of verbal ones. The moment of childhood is found to be represented in an idealized manner, as a time of formation, care and protection. We have also investigated in what way the two authors, Maurício de Sousa and UNICEF, mobilize discourses from other realms of activity (political, pedagogical, scientific) towards a unified dialogic project. In terms of methodology, we work with the proposal of Brazilian scholars regarding discourse dialogic analysis, especially pertaining to the analysis of verbal-visual utterances. It is a qualitive research, in which we propose to analyze eight advertisements from the set, and also an interpretative work, where we recognize the importance of scientific rigor without the erasure of the subjective role of the researcher. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 16/02639-7 - Childhood and institutional publicity: dialogical analysis of posters produced by UNICEF and Maurício de Sousa
• Grantee: Monique de Almeida Neves Rodrigues
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master