Análise do gênero no mundo do trabalho: os usos do memorando nas práticas profissionais do Instituto Federal de Pernambuco - Campus Recife nos séculos XX e XXI

Abstract

This thesis results from an investigation that studied discursive practices in the world of work through the authentic uses of the memorandum – genre from official and business correspondence –, in the Pernambuco Federal Institute of Education, Science, and Technology/Campus Recife, Brazil, between 1973 and 2014. The research aimed at to investigate the memorandum on two interrelated fronts, in which it was sought to look at both the contextual dimension and the textual dimension of the genre in focus. As for the first dimension, it was sought to observe aspects related to the production, circulation and reception situation of the memorandum in the research locus institution; as for the second, we looked at linguistic-discursive aspects of the genre researched, mainly bureaucratic language. From a theoretical point of view, this thesis is centrally related to genre studies, through the articulation of categories coming from different contributions: (i) the dialogical perspective, according to Bakhtin and Volochínov ([1929a] 2009) and Bakhtin ([1953] 2003); (ii) the conception of Rhetoric Studies of Genres, according to Miller ([1984] 2009a) and Bazerman ([2004] 2009a); (iii) the approach to English for Specific Purposes, based on Swales (1990; 2004) and Bhatia (1993; 2004); (iv) the paradigm of Discursive Traditions, according to Kabatek (2005a, 2012), among others. With regard to the methodological approach, it is an investigation of a predominantly qualitative nature, supported by quantitative data, whose technique of approach is based on the documentary analysis, being configured as na inductive and descriptive-interpretive study (CHIZZOTI, 2014; TRIVIÑOS, 2015; LÜDKE; ANDRÉ, 2015) The research was operationalized through the analysis of a corpus constituted by 60 (sixty) memorandums, collected in the General Archive of the Federal Institute of Pernambuco/Campus Recife. The corpus is also constituted by a set of documents (administrative process) that circulated in this same federal institution of education, which is denominated, in this thesis, as a system of bureaucratics genres. The analysis procedures start from the context to the text of the memorandum, in a dialogical relation. The results reveal that the memorandum is a complex genre in terms of its discursive functioning, because, although it tends to stability, it presents to considerable heterogeneity, driven by the diversity of professional practices that engender it within the institutional framework. The research reported here provides a critical view of the complex and multifaceted human language, functioning as an invitation to the discussion, specifically regarding the unveiling of the meanings of official and business communication.