Análise de minicontos publicados em meio digital: organização retórica e projeção de sentidos

Abstract

This work has as its object of investigation the genre of micro short stories (or micro stories), focusing analysis on its socio-communicative characteristics, such as condition of production, circulation, and reception, including a description of theoretical organization, with the aim of understanding the way these resources can contribute to teaching the genre in Portuguese Language lessons in Brazil. This research has a qualitative foundation and documental nature, with a theoretical background from Bakhtin’s studies (2001) on speech genres, and from the postulates of Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST), with emphasis on Mann and Thompson’s (1988), Antonio’s, (2003) and Decat’s (2010) works. Moreover, based on the critical literature in the field, I searched contributions from general studies about the micro story in order to understand the parameters that characterize its constitution and function in social practices through language. To analyse and describe the texts that represent that genre, I selected, asymmetrically, 05 (five) micro stories that were published in an electronic magazine exclusively dedicated to the genre, between July and November 2020. Micro stories and its texts were examined through the contributions from Bakhtinian theory and from the categories in Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST). Among other aspects, the results achieved with the investigation suggest that micro stories present a thematic horizon marked by subverting imaginations and representations about content from contemporary social life, in addition to presenting as their central communicative purpose a reflection about existential and emotional issues in human nature. Regarding textual organization, I observed that the texts presented a series of logical relationships, which encompassed both compositional properties and narratives from the studied genre, as well as a categorization in blocs and informational units that assist in understanding and interpreting texts. Finally, it is plausible to state that micro stories, seen as discursive practices that are predominantly present in the virtual universe, may service the formation of critical and reflexive readers about diverse topics that characterize and constitute life in a society.