Afluente: Revista de Letras e Linguística

A language experience in O Irmão Alemão, by Chico Buarque

2024-07-30T13:44:17-03:00

The novel The German Brother, by Chico Buarque, starts from a primary source (letter), found by one of the characters, which moves the development of the narrative and highlights the uniqueness of primary sources for contemporary History and Literary Theory. Published in 2014, the novel highlights a global scenario, with fragmented territorial borders, structured between the tensions of what is real/historical – intertwined in a fertile web of imagination – establishing a fictional field. Therefore, this study aimed to propose a semiotic reading of the novel, emphasizing experience as a cognitive aspect of language whose materiality makes it possible to visualize the subjective of human relations, and the conflicts of the globalized, transnationalized territory. He followed the qualitative research method, performing a reading of some of his excerpts, focusing on the textual surface, that is, on language, based on Benveniste (1989) and Lacan (1982; 1998) among others; as well as Aira (1993), which made it possible to understand the fictional element as an aid to thought, and exoticism in its critical and positive aspect. To this end, Schøllhammer (2021) promoted the understanding of exoticism as a literary element of language. Santos (1998) and Bhabha (1998) helped in the reflection on the transnationalized space/territory and discursive instance. Thus, he found, in The German Brother, a narrative sustained by the historical bias of a primary source, although the reader finds semiotic stimuli to transit through the boundaries of the real and the imagination, where the fictional is established illuminating fragmented Brazilian-German spaces, which reflect a globalized context in which Nazi and dictatorial ideologies echo in the materiality of language.

Dialogism and multilinguism in the reports and letters sent to the Jornal da Tarde in the Novel Capitães da Areia

2025-05-15T09:47:27-03:00

This paper aims to analyze dialogism and multilingualism in the news reports and letters sent to the "Jornal da Tarde," featured in the work Captains of the Sands by Jorge Amado, highlighting how the statements interact with each other and demonstrate different ideological constructions. Specifically, the study seeks to identify the interweaving of social voices in the news reports and letters within the structure of the novel, examine how social positions influence the construction and discursive interactions of the characters, and explore the dialogical characteristics of the utterances present in the narrative. The theoretical framework draws on the contributions of Bakhtin (2010, 2012) and Fiorin (2006) regarding dialogism and multilingualism in the novel, as well as Candido (2000) on literature and society, among others. The methodology consisted of a bibliographic review with an explanatory-exploratory nature and a qualitative approach. The results demonstrate that in the news reports and letters sent to the "Jornal da Tarde," a multiplicity of social voices can be observed, constructed from different socio-ideological positions, in which the characters appropriate the voices of others and engage in direct dialogue through responsive discourses that relate to the extraverbal contexts and the evaluative positions of the characters involved.

Teaching literature through partial reading of novels: the face can hide the strength of the heart

2025-05-26T14:30:46-03:00

This paper aims to investigate the potentialities and limitations of the partial reading of novels in the teaching-learning process of literature. To this end, it initially describes a teaching and research experience - along with its epistemological basis - that was carried out with third-year high school students from a public school in São Luís do Maranhão, Brazil. It then presents and discusses the results obtained by the proposed activities. This work is methodologically supported by the qualitative paradigm. An interpretative analysis of the activities produced during the project Saramaguear o que (não) há de bom was performed. In the project, a group of students was challenged to read and interpret the first chapters of the novels: Death with interruptions and Essay on blindness, by the Portuguese writer José Saramago. The analysis of the data generated from the relationship among the texts, the students and the teacher showed that the partial reading of a novel associated with the maieutic teaching attitude may open the paths of literary reading and, consequently, of our humanization.

The time that crosses memory and the space that inscribes resistance

2025-05-09T11:48:34-03:00

This article proposes an analysis of the film “I’m Still Here” (2024) through the lens of the concept of the chronotope, as formulated by Mikhail Bakhtin in his reading of Dostoiévski. The research explores how cinematic time and space structure the narrative, materializing social experiences marked by multiple layers of oppression and resistance. It is based on the premise that cinema is not a mere mirror of reality, but a space of symbolic and political inscription, where bodies, voices, and silences are arranged in an affective and historical cartography. To this end, a qualitative and interpretative methodology is adopted, following Minayo (2001) and Silveira & Córdova (2009), with the aim of describing the social relations and layers of oppression present in the film. Based on the analysis of three specific scenes, the study investigates how the chronotopes of the big city, the unexpected encounter, and confinement operate in the construction of belonging, revealing the interaction between physical and subjective territories, as well as between the time of memory and the time of waiting. The results indicate that the juxtaposition of spaces and temporalities in the film not only shapes its narrative aesthetics, but also denounces the dynamics of exclusion and resistance that structure the reality of the subjects represented. Thus, cinema is reaffirmed as a field of symbolic dispute, in which time and space become central elements in the construction of existences and identities.

The construction of meanings about women in university country music

2025-07-14T16:02:33-03:00

This article aims to analyze the process of constructing meanings related to women in universitary sertanejo, through the study of discursive materiality present in the lyrics of songs of this musical style. The theoretical-analytical device of French Discourse Analysis is adopted as the methodology in this work, conducting a discursive analysis of the lyrics of the chosen songs, which are "Amante não tem lar" composed by Juliano Tchula and Marília Mendonça, and "Chora, boy!" composed by Simone and Simaria. The research results reveal the complex and diversified construction of meaning effects on the feminine figure in the university country music genre.

Language, culture, and identity: boundaries between languages in the speech of an immigrant

2025-03-21T17:55:11-03:00

This study analyzes how the Japanese language emerges in oral verbal interactions in Brazilian Portuguese by a Japanese immigrant subject, using as its corpus the documentary As Lentes de Kenji (2008), which pays tribute to photographer Kenji Ueta, a Japanese immigrant living in Maringá. Based on the theory of enunciative heterogeneities by Authier-Revuz (1990; 1998; 2004; 2007), we investigate how the subject mobilizes the Japanese language (and, consequently, Japanese culture) in their enunciation, seeking to understand how they navigate linguistic and cultural boundaries in the construction of their immigrant subjectivity and their circulation through identities – in the sense proposed by Hall (2006). To this end, instances where the subject transitions between languages were identified and transcribed according to the NURC standards described by Castilho (2014). A qualitative analysis of these instances was conducted to describe the uses of Japanese in the speech of the subject and to identify points of manifest heterogeneity that emerge in their verbal expression. The results indicate that these occurrences function as markers that reveal a subject split between languages and cultures, shaped by their dual Japanese-Brazilian nationality. Thus, by resorting to Japanese to express their experiences and practices, the subject reaffirms their Japanese-Brazilian identities, articulating their speech between two linguistic and cultural traditions.