The role of referential networks in the argumentative construction of signed opinion columns

Abstract

This article, resulting from a dissertation (Rocha, 2024), analyzes the role of referential networks in argumentative construction of signed opinion columns. For this, we affiliate to the Textual Linguistics theoretical framework, emphasizing the interface between it and the Theory of Discourse Analysis, from which we assume argumentativeness as a principle inherent to the text. We also adopt the assumptions that referencing is a discursive activity and that referents organize in referential networks. Theoretical discussions are undertaken here based on authors like Mondada and Dubois (2003), Cavalcante et al. (2020) and Matos (2018). The research corpus consists of two signed opinion columns, published by the newspaper Folha de S.Paulo, from which two excerpts are analyzed, one from each column. As for the results, the analyses show that the referents established by the columnists keep multiple relations of meaning between them, composing referential networks, which collaborate to the attempt of influencing readers, in the search for making them adhere to the theses defended. For reason of the opinative nature of the genre investigated, we verify that the networks are revested of explicitly evaluative traits. It is concluded, thus, that reference networks are a powerful means to aprehend the argumentativeness, what reinforces the theoretical, analytical and methodological sophistication of the interface between Textual Linguistics and the Theory of Argumentation in Discourse.