Banca de DEFESA: ANA RAFAELA OLIVEIRA E SILVA

DISCURSIVE ETHOS AND IDENTITY REPRESENTATIONS ABOUT WOMEN CRIMINALS IN MEDIA MATERIALS ON THE WEB

Em construção.

This work aims to investigate the process of constructing the discursive identity of female criminals, namely Heloísa Borba Gonçalves, known as the Black Widow (1971-1992); Dorinha Duval (1980); Suzane Von Richthofen (2002); and Elize Matsunaga (2012), who were central figures in four crimes committed during the mid-20th and early 21st centuries, which generated significant media repercussion. To this end, this study is based on the theoretical frameworks of French Discourse Analysis: Carreon, Ruiz, Araújo (2019); Fiorindo (2012); Heine (2012); Maingueneau (2008; 2015; 2018); and Possenti (2020). Moreover, it also incorporates the identity studies by Acuña (2009); Bauman (2001; 2004; 2010; 2011a; 2011b); Beauvoir (2016a; 2016b); Duschatzky, Skliar (2011); Hall (2005); Saffioti (1987); and Woodward (2000). Furthermore, due to the corpus not only originating from Brazilian police sources, but also from the broader media sphere, the investigations are supported by Debord (2013), Eluf (2007), and Campbell (2020; 2021). The results of the investigation reveal that the institutional enunciator, in terms of the assigned discursive ethos, closely resembles the third-person narrator in literature. This resemblance stems not only from using the third person but also from maintaining a distance from the enunciated content and the criminological enunciative scene that belongs to the co-enunciator. In addition, the enunciator draws upon discourses from various spheres to attribute a cold, self-interested, and cruel ethos to the aforementioned criminal women, specifically within the scope of this research. In terms of identity, it was observed that, despite assuming an uncommon identity (that of a criminal) for female subjects, the four female perpetrators in this study also possess other identities commonly associated with femininity, such as mothers, wives, daughters, lawyers, actresses, sex workers, and Law students. These identities are directly linked to their comfortable socioeconomic and cultural situations. Moreover, these women have often transitioned between the center and the periphery throughout their lives, in terms of economic and legal aspects, which demonstrated that instead of a dichotomy, there is an intersection. Therefore, in this work, discursive ethos and identity representations maintain a strong relationship due to the stereotypes that guide both processes.