Metáforas do babaçu: conceptualizações metafóricas sobre o extrativismo do babaçu em cânticos

Abstract

Metaphor is a very present element in our way of conceptualizing the world, as it encompasses our bodily, social and cultural experiences, guiding and revealing the way we understand the reality that surrounds us (LAKOFF AND JOHNSON, 1980). Therefore, the problem that guides this analysis is to know how babassu/babassu extractivism is conceptualized, in discursive and socio-cognitive terms, in the musical songs of the women's group As Encantadeiras. To answer it, we propose to analyze the metaphorical conceptualizations about babassu in the light of Cognitive Linguistics in discourse perspective. In this theoretical framework, we are specifically situated in the Conceptual Metaphor Theory proposed by Lakoff and Johnson (1980; 1999) and, due to the cognitive-discursive nature of this analysis, in Fillmore (2006), Kövecses (2002, 2010), Vereza (2004; 2010) and Cameron and Deignan (2006), as well as on Foucault’s (1969[2004]) and Pêcheux’s (1995; 1997; 1988) postulates on discourse and discursive formations within French Discourse Analysis. As a methodology, we used the descriptive-exploratory bibliographic research. The research corpus consists of the analysis of ten songs by the musical group As Encantadeiras. The analysis method adopted for data processing consists of the reading method (SARDINHA, 2007) and manual data collection. As a result, we were able to identify the presence, almost the majority of metaphors classified as personification, such as: PALM TREE IS A PERSON, PALM TREE IS A MOTHER and PALM TREE IS A VICTIM, referring to the FAMILY frame, from the attribution of human physical traits as someone who bleeds, who has children, who is responsible for family support and so on. We also identified the presence of the metaphor BABAÇU IS SOURCE OF INCOME, which implies the recognition of the social situation of the coconut breakers, as an economic symbol for this group of women, often their only source of income. As for the BABAÇU É GUERRA metaphor, identified in our data, its emergence is based largely on the conditions of production of this discourse, the socio-historical context in which the breakers are inserted, such as the social events that occurred in the 80s and 90s In this sense, we could observe that the discursive formations present in the songs reveal the regularity of the adopted discourse, supporting the metaphors and frames which emerge in the discourse. In addition, if the adoption of certain discursive formations, such as the religious one, is quite present in the songs, it can be observed in the conceptual metaphor PALMEIRA IS A SAINT, revealing specific aspects of devotion, belief in the babassu palm, always anchored in the bias historical and social of the coconut breakers. We conclude, finally, that the understanding of the conceptual nature of babassu through its linguistic and discursive manifestations allowed us to notice how the socio-cognitive aspects underlie worldviews and expectations. For this reason, the babaçu/palm tree does not constitute a single “entity” when referring to the ontological conceptual metaphor: of mother, saint, victim, etc., since taking it in one way or another implies the adoption of certain socio-subjective positions socio-subjective, metaphorically constructed on a cultural and linguistic basis.