The goal of the meeting is to integrate the various Discourse analysis (DA) researchers of the Northern Region of Brazil, in order to promote the discussion around the varieties of research that are being developed in this field and therefore, to draw a profile of the study of DA in Amazonia.
This meeting is supposed to be the starting point of a cycle of discussions which will unfold an agenda of new academic events in DA for the coming years. This dynamics will help us, as researchers, to recognize and be recognized as discourse analysts, in the direction of jointly build a debate tradition around the theme of the speech.
A Brief History of Discourse Analysis
The Discourse analysis (DA) is a research field that aims to understand the social production of meaning carried out by historical subjects by means of different materiality. Through a sophisticated interdisciplinary interpreting approach, the new and redesigned field of DA unfolds several frontiers in the Language Studies, Psychoanalysis, History, among other knowledge areas.
Discourse Analysis, like so many other fields of research, came to us by means of imported authors and epistemologies. In the shape that took over in Brazil, the DA studies built itself through the discussion of the works of Michel Foucault, Michel Pêcheux, Mikhail Bakhtin, Norman Fairclough, among others.
Although still quite recent, since the year 1980, we have seen an increase in researches that took as theoretical basis the DA in different areas: communications, education, law, anthropology, history, and others. Universities such as UNICAMP, UNESP, UFMG, UFRGS have already become reference centers in South America and, today, there are already providing doctors who are spread throughout this part of the continent.
As a consequence of this moving direction of meanings, names such as Maria do Rosário Gregolin, Wanderley Geraldi, Eni Orlandi and Sírio Possenti, have begun to establish themselves as references in this field, at national level. Here at Amazonia, we have developed research in AD following the increasing interest of undergraduate and graduate students in this field.
So, now that Doctors are already producing research in different States of the Amazon region, the time has come for us to begin getting acquainted and to do a deep reflection about the research practice developed by us.
As in other fields, we need to discuss which paths are drawn for the AD field for a Brazilian reality and, more specifically, for the Amazonian reality. What different theoretical and methodological strategies of appropriation this small and young research cartography in AD, starts to draw in Amazonian scenario?
By Sílvia Baía
