Discursos retórico-argumentativos do jornal “O Dia” sobre o Sanatório Meduna

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the rhetorical-argumentative discourse in informative texts published by the newspaper O Dia, which highlighted the role of the Meduna sanatorium, the most important psychiatric institution in the state of Piauí, located in Teresina, which operated for half a century (1954-2010). Thus, we follow the epistemological and methodological assumptions of studies in Argumentation, Discourse and Rhetoric, drawing on the works of: Aristotle (2015, 2021); Charaudeau (2016); Meyer (2007); Ferreira (2021); Perelman and Olbrechts-Tyteca (2014) and Amossy (2018), among others. We adopted as the corpus of this research two informative texts published by the newspaper O Dia, respectively, on June 17, 1994 and May 23, 2010. It was noticed through the analyses that, despite the informative texts being characterized only by an argumentative dimension (without declared argumentative orientation), we identified in them the presence of arguments that are found on the plane of reason. Among the results of this research, we highlight that the speakers in the analyzed texts used rational arguments in order to prove their assertions, mainly through arguments of authority, illustration, comparison, definition, citation (reported speech) and definition of a being. We therefore conclude that the texts, although not having an explicit argumentative orientation, also aim to convince and persuade the reading public to adopt a certain opinion, idea or point of view, through strategies that are found on the plane of the probable or on the plane of emotions.