Narrativa autobiográfica de um imigrante nos EUA: um estudo de caso pelo viés da Gramática Sistêmico-Funcional

Abstract

This is a case study which aims to analyze the autobiographical representations made by a Mexican immigrant in the US, Richard Rodriguez, of his identity and social inclusion processes, while being educated in the English language. Specifically, we focus on the lexicogrammatical choices made, regarding the participants, processes and circumstances that background his social identity construction within the family (Spanish) and public (English) contexts, in addition to the historically-situated discursive practices that underlie the transition between his two worlds and will help to build up the new self. Besides, we also shed light on those social actors whose roles played during the narrator´s assimilation process were considered to be relevant by the author. Excerpts which we judged to be the most relevant to represent the writer´s views were taken from the corpus - made up of a prologue and six chapters - and analyzed based on the Halliday & Matthiessen´s ideational metafunction, whose meaning is realized through the Transitivity System in the Systemic-Functional Grammar (GSF). The GSF was chosen because it focuses on the relation between language and other aspects of the social life, while the choice for the present corpus was made on the basis that it is canonical in the USA in the treatment of questions related to immigrants´ assimilation process in America and education in a second language. The analysis of the social actors is carried out according to Van Leeuwen´s (2003) theory of Representation of Social Actors, which has also proved to be especially useful in getting an understanding of the roles played by all involved in the narrative. We also analyze the meanings created by the narrator ( semantic strata of the GSF ) which come from his lexicogramatical choices mentioned above, basing the analysis on the theories devised by scholars such as Fairclough (1992,2003), Giddens (2002), Castells (2008), de Fina (2003, 2006), and Edwards (2006), among others. The analysis above leads us to the conclusion that, in the writer´s views, it is essential for the immigrant to give up his culture and language in order to fully assimilate the new culture. Therefore, he places himself against the government´s bilingual program by claiming it to be a hindrance to the whole assimilation process. We also come to prove right the claim that the subject does not exist prior to language, without which he would not come to be and recognize himself as an individual in the society. Finally, we tried to show how useful and efficient an instrument of research GSF can be to analyze the individual´s representations of his experiences and his world, making us co-participants in the ideologies defended before all the society.