Cotejo da função interpessoal entre o modo semiótico visual e o verbal: análise das convergências e divergências na expressão de sentimentos no curta-metragem Bravura e em sua audiodescrição

Abstract

This PhD dissertation aims to study the complementarities between the expression of feelings in the short film Bravura (2014) and in its audio description (AD) script from a social-semiotic and multimodal perspective. As a study within Accessible Audiovisual Translation (ATAV), it addresses AD as a form of translation for visually impaired people. In taking a systemic-functional approach, it draws both on Painter, Martin and Unsworth’s (2013) model to address the visual narrative and on Martin and White’s (2005) model to address the verbal narrative. It expands Praxedes Filho and Magalhães (2013; 2015) and Magalhães and Praxedes Filho (2018), who showed that real AD scripts are not as neutral as usually prescribed. The first methodological step is adapted from Iedema (2001), with the short film divided into five levels of analysis: shot, scene, sequence, generic stage, and entire film. The generic stages of the AD script were delimited according to Martin and Rose (2008). Software ELAN 6.1 was used to annotate both visual and verbal texts. Convergences and divergences between the expression of feelings in the visual and the verbal systems were identified building on the complementarities of semiotic systems as established by Painter, Martin and Unsworth (2013). Findings showed that Bravura features the expected stage structure, confirming Iedema (2001) (the symbol ꓥ means “followed by”): Orientation (from shot 6 to 24; from AD insertion 4 to 11) ꓥ Complication (25 to 62; and 12 to 38) ꓥ Resolution (63 to 76; and 39 to 50). The visual resources draw the audience’s attention mainly to the emotions of characters Paco and bull, as well as to their confrontation in a bullfight. Close-up and medium shots as well as equality of power were often used to shorten the distance from the interactive participant, whereas long shots and oblique angles lengthened the distance. Appraisal resources instantiated more affects (54 times) and judgments (48), and fewer appreciations (19) and graduations (17). Most affects and judgments were evoked, whereas appreciation was mostly inscribed. As for polarity, affects were mostly negative, while judgments and appreciations were positive. As for complementarities, visual and verbal narratives stages coincided: Orientation ꓥ Complication ꓥ Resolution. The types of affects instantiated in both narratives converged. However, divergences included the fact that the verbal mode instantiated judgments that were not instantiated in visual mode. The AD emphasized some affects which were attenuated in the visual narrative through resources from the SOCIAL DISTANCE System. In contrast, there were more committed and coupled meanings in the visual narrative. An example is that ambience instantiated a nostalgic mood in the first scene, but it expressed happiness and vivacity afterwards, and changed again to a reddish color at the end of the film. These feelings were not instantiated in the AD. Such omission of verbal translation of the visual narrative was found when images instantiated graduation in depicting the bullfight audience.