Uma análise crítica discursiva dos projetos de lei estaduais e distrital sobre linguagem neutra no Brasil

Abstract

This research seeks to critically analyze the discourses that underpin state and district bills in Brazil in relation to neutral language. As we believe that these discourses reflect the ideologies of a historically colonized society, it is important to problematize them, using the transdisciplinarity of applied linguistics with notions from critical discourse analysis, since these legislative documents involving neutral language go beyond purely linguistic issues, producing effects of meaning and social performances. Therefore, a critical discursive approach based on these texts is essential in order to address issues relating to exclusion, inclusion, affirmative action, among others, as well as considering cultural and ideological evidence as a counterpoint to the argument that is to be made about the practice of neutral language in different states of Brazil based on certain propositions. To support these considerations in correlation with the different perspectives present in the Bills, we draw on the theoretical contribution of Fairclough (1989, 1992, 1995, 2000, 2001, 2003, 2006, 2016), Van Dijk (1995, 1999, 2005, 2015), Butler (1993, 1997, 2003, 2008), Habermas (1997, 2001, 2003), Lau (2016, 2017), Souza (2011), Barbosa Filho; Othero (2022) and Foucault (2008, 2009, 2011), with the central idea being that language is profoundly socio-political. Methodologically, we sought to quantitatively and, above all, qualitatively question the discourses extracted from the textual materiality of 54 state and district bills that refer to the issue of neutral language. With different authors and party affiliations, these texts preserve the notion of gender binarity in order to legislate against non-binary language. Among prohibitive, religious and conservative discourses, it is possible to observe a desire for truth about the maintenance of the cultured norm in school and social spaces, with a view to preserving the national language and its users, generally addressed to the perceived danger of gender ideology, among other discourses that weigh on the argumentation of these proposals.