Vai tirar um dinheiro que é teu: caracterização prosódica e gestual das narrativas de enterro

Abstract

In the present study we focus a type of oral narrative, the burial narrative, which comprises the rescue of a supernatural treasure, revealed to a chosen person with a deserving profile. According to Fernandes (2007), the burial narrative is characterized by having four archetypes or meanings: protostory, descriptive, explanatory, deception and a structure composedof: origin, annunciation, manifestation, marking, ordeal and outcome. The elaboration of archetypes and structure is subordinated to the narrator's linguistic awareness. In the research athand, we expanded Fernandes' (2007) discussions, postulating that the narrator associatesprosody and gesture, to make a discursive break and/or produce meaning(s). The research corpusincludes 32 narratives, recorded in mp4 and wav format, prepared by native speakers from quilombola communities in Baixo Tocantins/PA: Mola, Itabatinga, Itapocu, Laguinho, Tomázia, Bomfim, Taxizal and Frade. Data processing involved: 1) transcription, according to the Conversation Analysis Notation System (MARCUSCHI, 1986); 2) structural analysis(FERNANDES, 2007); 3) segmentation in PRAAT to map the silent pause (in ms) and f0 (in Hz); 4) taking acoustic measurements with a relevant role in delimiting the parts (OLIVEIRA Jr., 2000); 5) notation in ELAN, of tracks, containing: a) parts of the narrative (FERNANDES, 2007); b) utterance (discursive sequence delimited by a pause of variable length), c) gestural dimension (MCNEILL, 2005): iconic, metaphorical, deictic and rhythmic; and d) gestural phases: preparation, blow, post-blow (KENDON, 2004), and 6) treatment in RsTudio. The result demonstrated that: 1) regarding prosodic analysis: a) the pause delimits the parts of the burial narrative, as at the border it has a longer duration (in ms); b) the pitch range (minimum, average and maximum) plays a crucial role in defining the parts, as it presents a downward curvature at the border. 2) Regarding gestural variables: a) the rhythmic gesture has greater occurrence and,b) the verbal-gestural movement is achieved through the elaboration of its nucleares phase: the blow. 3) Regarding the correlation between gesture and prosody, we detected that: a) during thepost-stroke, the duration of the pause is longer; b) maximum f0 is more prominent in the stroke and decreases post-stroke; c) the average f0 has a greater elevation during the pre-strike, has a downward curvature in the stroke and post-strike; d) the minimum f0 increases during the courseof the pre-stroke. Therefore, we attest to the hypotheses that there is a multimodal structure in burial narratives, because the narrator associates prosody and gestures to delimit the parts and/or produce meaning.