Como pode o sertão ser tão seco? (Re)enunciações de um sertão uno/seco na Literatura Infantil

Abstract

When we see the mainstream media and literature portraying the Hinterland, the northeast, and the semi-arid region, we notice a series of caricatured images that have taken over the national imagination since the mid-19th century, (re)enunciating a stereotypical discourse and displaying the extreme “dryness” of spaces seen as one, backward, dry, and miserable. Although there are other discourses, the hegemonic discourse brings this vision that takes these spatialities as reactionary, displaying “dry” and “desert” spaces. So, in this research, thinking about the discursive constructions of these spatialities, an enunciating discursive reading of the book, from the children's literary genre, entitled “Be So”, published in 2016, authored by Fábio Monteiro, with illustration by Mauricio Negro, aims to discuss how the narrative (re)enunciates stabilized meanings about the Hinterland, the Northeast, and the semi-arid region, and how linguistic-semiotic aspects are mobilized to maintain imagery and discursive constructions that reaffirm/reefed stereotypical meanings about these spaces. Thus, the problem of the study shows how a book, recommended for children aged 6 to 10 years old, brings traces of subjective works of art and indicates the implications for the public. Therefore, one imagines how the Hinterland is (re)enunciative in children's literature, thinking about the forged meanings and which meanings are being forged. This research is linked to the assumptions of in-disciplinary applied linguistics, which considers the relationship between discursive and social practices, taking them as inseparable, therefore, it is associated with the assumptions of the concrete enunciation of the Bakhtin Circle under a qualitative approach, which has the bases of the interpretive paradigm. This research relies on the theoretical framework of studies by authors such as Albuquerque Jr. (2008; 2011; 2016; 2021); Moita Lopes (2002; 2013; 2015; 2022); Santos Filho (2012; 2017; 2020; 2022); Antunes (2012); and Martin and Souza (2021), among others. The research results show that the constituent elements of children's literary narrative have a linguistic-discursive, multi-semiotic construction that continues to (re)enunciate words from an audiovisual archive forged in the 19th century.