O gênero opinativo "cartas do leitor": uma análise de appraisal

Abstract

This research is base don the functional-systemic linguistics and it aims at describing and analyzing the categories of appraisal, in 50 texts published in the section ‘Letters of the Reader’ in Veja magazine, showing the importance of the linguistic choices for the construction of the those meanings related to the emotions of the speaker. As a theoretical framework, we adopt the ideas of Michael Halliday (1994) who conceives language as a for as of action on reality, by means of which the speaker communicates according to three groups of meanings: ideational, interpersonal and textual. We focus on the interpersonal metafunction, particularly, on the theory of appraisal, defended by Martin (2000), Martin and Rose (2003) and Martin and White (2005). The analysis of the lexical expressions used in the elaboration of the letters proves that the writers use the categories of appraisal to express positive and negative feelings, either to judge behaviors or attitudes, either to externalize affections or disaffections; either to appreciate people or objects. It was evidenced that in the textual genre ‘Letters of the Reader’ the evaluative category of ‘judgment’ is predominant.