João present!

An analysis of the discursive functioning of a peripheral subject

Abstract

The French Discourse Analysis (DA), with the theoretical and methodological support, was the instrument that made us enter into the possibilities of significations of the resistance discourse of the singer and composer Marcelo Mira, in the song João. Elaborated almost two decades ago, the discursive process analyzed not only reflected historical problems of poverty in Brazil, but also favored the discussion about the deepening of the crisis today. The dialogue with the exteriority brought to the present time modes of meaning of stabilized, institutionalized sayings. Artistic creativity, when it applies metaphors, paraphrases, and polysemy, establishes new possibilities of signification. The main objective of this work is to analyze the discourse of resistance of a peripheral and black subject, who developed himself in the field of musical art and who stands up against the current dominant discourse, marked by neoliberalism. The analysis is based on Pêcheux, authors who are references, in Brazil, in AD studies, such as Eni Orlandi and Cristina Leandro Ferreira. In the perspective of the movement between discourse and interdiscourse, we contemporized the discussions with assumptions from other areas of knowledge, with emphasis on sociology, which are in full debate with the neoliberal paradigm. We also researched digital media and official websites to obtain recent data and arguments circulating in the virtual environment about the issues raised here. In the discursive materiality of the song is inscribed a chronology of pain and struggle in João’s life, as a character, which represents, at the same time, the subjection and the confrontation of the discourse that interpellates him as a subject.