Discurso, cognição e corpus: análise estilística de The Handmaid's Tale e de duas traduções

Abstract

This doctoral thesis presents a stylistic analysis of the Canadian novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by Margaret Atwood and of two Brazilian translations, A História da Aia (1987) by Márcia Serra and O Conto da Aia (2006) by Ana Deiró, aiming at the development of the theoretical and methodological integration of Cognitive Stylistics and Corpus Stylistics. The theoretical and methodological framework comprises two branches of Stylistics, Cognitive Stylistics (STOCKWELL, 2002) and Corpus Stylistics (MAHLBERG, 2016). Based on the concepts of text-worlds, local textual functions, mind style and mind-modelling we investigate the world building and the representation of mental states of the novel’s narrator. The methodological procedures include the compilation of an electronic corpus made up of the aforementioned books so as to examine the textual patterns and describe their function in context as regards the projection of text-worlds. The computational software used for data analysis is WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2012) and its three main tools: Concord, Keywords and WordList. Text World Theory (WERTH, 1999; GAVINS, 2007), a cognitive linguistic model for discourse processing, which allows for the examination of mental representations projected during reading, is used as the analytical basis of the study. This thesis demonstrates how the projection of text-worlds, including deictic worlds, modal worlds, blended worlds and negative worlds constitutes the narrator’s mind-style and contributes to the modelling of her mind by readers. The main contributions of this study include: (i) the understanding of the ways that textual patterns function as building blocks of the fictional world and of the mind-style, (ii) the understanding of the effects of translation through interlinguistic comparison and (iii) the consolidation of Cognitive Corpus Stylistics.