A modalidade deÃntica como expressÃo de valores vitorianos na peÃa Lady Windermere's fan

• Autor(a) principal: Rachel UchÃa Batista
• Data de Publicação: 2015
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Biblioteca Digital de Teses e Dissertações da UFC
• Texto Completo: http://www.teses.ufc.br/tde_busca/arquivo.php?codArquivo=14744
• topic: modalidade; deÃntica; era vitoriana; Modality; deontic; Victorian age; LINGUISTICA

This research has tried to investigate the relashionship between linguistic expressions of deontic modality and the construction of speeches which reveal values of the Victorian age. The study was developed under the functionalist linguistic theory once it allows us to go through both linguistic expressions and meaning in a specific context in order to analyze the effects in meaning expressed by means of deontic modality. In this sense, the investigation was based on Palmer (1986), Dik (1997), Verstraete (2004), Neves (2006), among other authors who helped us understand the linguistic modality, specially the deontic type, and the features related to its occurrence. We have analyzed 299 deontically modalized pieces of enunciation from both male and female characters from the play Lady Windermereâs fan, by Oscar Wilde, concerning all the acts of the play. Deontic modality is related to the possibility or necessity of acts executed by morally responsible agents and was analyzed under the manifestation of syntactic, semantic and pragmatic aspects as a whole. The data we analyzed have shown us that the âAuxiliary verbsâ category corespond to the linguistic means of expression of modality more frequently used and was registred in 51% of the cases. Within this category we have considered both modal auxiliaries and the âhave to + infinitiveâ expression. The âAuxiliary verbsâ category was followed by âVerbal Modesâ (26,4) and âMain verbsâ (16%) categories. As for deontic values, obligation corresponded to 58% of the cases, that is, 174 occurrences. Among these, 139 were internal obligation, not corresponding to our expectations. One can also observe the high frequency of the type of deontic source âEnunciatorâ (234 cases). We believed the frequency of the source âInstitutionâ would be the highest. About the inclusion of the deontic source in the deontic target, we have registred the non-inclusion in 68% of the cases. This last aspect caused an effect of distance between deontic source and target in the play and helped establishing boundaries between boss and employee, or reinforcing the social class division, which is a characteristic of the Victorian period. Contrary to what we believed, female characters were responsible for 65,6% pieces of enunciation (196 cases), which means they produced more deontic values than male characters. Among these cases, 120 occurrences corresponded to an obligation, 31 occurrences corresponded to a permission, and 21 cases were a prohibition. In this sense, we have concluded that the deontic modals in the pieces of enunciation from the characters from the play Lady Windermereâs fan do not serve to express exclusively victorian values.