Cartas de intenção em processos seletivos acadêmicos: efeitos de sentido sobre o PET Letras UFU e a imagem de aluno-candidato

Abstract

This research presents a study about the genre letter of intent, concerning the Tutorial Education Program [Programa de Educação Tutorial] of Languages majors [PET Letras] of the Federal University of Uberlândia (UFU), used as part of the selection of new members of the program in 2018 and 2019. We will seek to analyze the discursive resonances in this genre that indicate representations of PET Letras UFU and of the candidate-student. The guiding question of this research was: What image of the student and of PET Letras UFU is built by the discursive operation of letters of intent written as a selective stage for the program? Thus, we built the hypothesis that the candidate-students write letters that predominantly use paraphrases and reformulations about PET, so there is an emptying of the persuasive operation of the genre, making it a not very effective instrument for selection. To analyze the discursive functioning of the letters of intent of the candidate-students, we rely, especially, on Bakhtinian studies, namely, on the texts: Aesthetics of Verbal Creation, (BAKHTIN, 1929 [1997]); Marxism and Philosophy of Language, (BAKHTIN/VOLÓCHINOV, 1929 [2006]) and Problems of Dostoevsky's Poetics (BAKHTIN, 1981 [2013]). With this theoretical framework, we seek to clarify the specificities of the letter of intent genre and what characterizes it as a genre, and we also addressed some concepts that will lead us in the approach of this analysis. This research is justified because we could not find, from the Bakhtinian perspective, any academic work about the letter of intention genre in the area of Linguistics studies. Therefore, we seek to answer the following research questions: i) What are the characteristics of the letter of intention genre? ii) To what extent do the texts written by the candidate-students respond or not to what is expected of the letter of intention genre? iii) What images of the candidate-student and of PET Letras UFU are built by the discursive operation of the letters of intent? Our methodology is based on the studies of the Dialogical Discourse Analysis from a dialogical perspective. The research showed us a predominance of the letters in the valuing of PET based on the benefits that the program will bring to the student and not on the contributions that the student will make to the program, not meeting the demands of the letter of intent genre as to persuasion. With this work, we intend to contribute to future candidates for academic selection processes with knowledge about the letter of intent genre in order to better express themselves as candidate-students.