Efeitos argumentativos de um “bilhete de amor”

Abstract

One may say there is argumentation when a speaker tries to impose a conclusion to the listener by presenting a reason, divided into an argument and a law, which is exterior to language and is responsible by the “leap” from argument to conclusion. Ducrot (1988), however, postulates that argumentation is within language. The argumentative value is part of the utterance: the argumentative principles – topoi – are inside the utterance and they are responsible by its orientation towards conclusion. Nevertheless, argumentation in child writing has not the same statute it has in adult speech or writing. This paper proposes therefore an analysis procedure that includes the singularities of the child’s text and seeks its specificity regarding argumentative discourse; at the same time, it understands argumentation as a counterpoint to language adrift [dérive], which guarantees meaning and integrity to textual and discursive sequences (Pereira de Castro, 2002). So, it analyzes a text produced by a six-year-old child, a “love note”. Based on Riffaterre (1989), this paper discusses the elements that constitute text argumentation: slips of language and discourse, parallelisms, cliches, interpretation by retroaction, in brief effects of argumentation promoted by text. Argumentation in written text is then understood as a tension between cohesion and rupture.