GM CROPS MAY BE HARMFUL TO THE ENVIRONMENT: GRAUS DE AUTORIDADE E ASSERTIVIDADE EM NOTÍCIAS DE POPULARIZAÇÃO DA CIÊNCIA / GM CROPS MAY BE HARMFUL TO THE ENVIRONMENT: DEGREES OF AUTHORITY AND ASSERTIVENESS IN SCIENCE POPULARIZATION NEWS

AUTOR(ES)
FONTE

IBICT - Instituto Brasileiro de Informação em Ciência e Tecnologia

DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2011

RESUMO

One of the main features of the science popularization (SP) news genre is the interplay of voices of social actors occupying different enunciative positions (BEACCO et al, 2002) such as scientists, technicians and government officials which interpret and evaluate the reported research (MOTTA-ROTH et al, 2008; MARCUZZO, 2009, 2010; MOTTA-ROTH; MARCUZZO, 2009). In the discussion about the validity and relevance of popularized research, linguistic choices (in terms of modality) point out the different degrees of authority and assertiveness of the social actors represented in the texts. The objective of the present study is to investigate how different degrees of authority and assertiveness are linguistically realized in the SP news genre, in order to present partial results of a wider research project on SP discourse (MOTTA-ROTH, 2007). The corpus comprises 30 news from two online publications: BBC News International and Scientific American. Three procedures were carried out in the study: a) identification of linguistic exponents which point out degrees of authority/assertiveness in the news; b) quali-quantitative analysis of identified exponents based on categories from Systemic-Functional Grammar (HALLIDAY, 2004) and; c) interpretation of linguistic exponents in the light of previous results about SP text and context investigation. The theoretical background of the study is Critical Genre Analysis (BHATIA, 2010) which combines a theory of genre (SWALES, 1990) and discourse (FAIRCLOUGH, 1992) with a systemic-functional perspective on language (HALLIDAY, 1978). The results confirm the position of discursive insecurity of the journalist in SP (MOIRAND, 2003), who makes use of different discursive strategies of modality in order to maintain the apparent objectivity of the journalistic discourse and the credibility of reported studies. Furthermore, research data demonstrates that, despite the categorical modality in the SP news titles, utterances present a low degree of modal commitment, allowing the dialogic expansion (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005) by the inclusion of alternative positions in the debates. In terms of degrees of assertiveness and authority, the analysis indicates that the scientific discourse in the media is an epistemic authority, considering the privileged role of the researcher-author in the evaluation of reported studies and, at the same time, it is a field of uncertainty, with researchers in charge of offering coherent explanations and pointing out studies limitations inside a research area.

ASSUNTO(S)

análise crítica do discurso linguística sistêmico-funcional popularização da ciência notícia modalidade letras science popularization news modality systemic functional linguistics critical discourse analysis

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