A fala-em-interação e o desacordo sob a perspectiva da linguística sistêmico-funcional

Abstract

The objective of this research is the examination of disagreement in an informal casual talk-in-interaction between a man and a woman to verify the lexicogrammatical choices that highlight the occurrence of disagreements, and the circumstances surrounding these events. The study of the act of disagreeing in daily conversation has been associated to both, Conversation Analysis studies, based on the notion of preference, and to the concept of model of Politeness. There are notable points of convergence in the preference setting and politeness. More specifically, both see disagreement as socially disruptive and, thus, considered as the second dispreferred part or face-threatening-acts. Both approaches emphasize the fact that disagreements should be mitigated or postponed: between, within and across speech turns. Thus, conversational disagreements tend to be temporarily postponed and structurally complex and generally preceded by partial agreements, hesitations, requests for clarification, repetitions of the question, among others. In fact, the degree and the type of strategy used to mitigate face-threatening-acts or dispreferred acts cannot be postulated a priori, but must be supported by empirical data analysis, which are situationally and contextually sensitive of the event of speech in which the act occurs. The critical nature of the analysis carried out is supported by the Systemic Functional Linguistics, which allows the relationship between the microstructure of lexicogrammatical choices with the macrostructure of disagreement and their implications. Following the trend of this research area trend, I adopt an eclectic theoretical base, extracting insights of different approaches, but with special focus on Conversation Analysis, Systemic Functional Linguistics and Critical Linguistics. This research aims to answer the following questions: (a) How are disagreement and mitigation characterized linguistically? (b) Which roles do causality, concession and adversativity perform in this process? (c) What is the function of Appraisal and Modality in relation to these issues?