A textual analysis of pathemic effects in educational advertising campaigns

ABSTRACT

The coronavirus pandemic context has driven the creation of many educational advertising campaigns that, among their communicative purposes, aim to guide the population regarding the ways to prevent Covid-19. These campaigns have sometimes invested in appealing to the emotions in order to sensitize the population to the subject. This paper, based on a theoretical articulation between Patrick Charaudeau's Semiolinguistic Theory , Textual Linguistics, develops a textual analysis of pathemic effects. For this, it assumes Charaudeau's (2010a) reflections on patemization, but defends, in line with Oliveira specialIntscript that, besides being analyzed by the communication contract, pathemization strategies should be seen under the prism of textualization strategies, especially the referential processes (CAVALCANTE;MARTINS, 2020). The analysis points to the decisive role of the introduction and mainly of the recategorization of the references negotiated in the text in the construction of a pathemic staging, in addition to the deictic focus, which fulfills the function of engaging the interlocutor in this staging. For this, the speaker strategically arranges the referents based on the beliefs he supposes are assumed by the interlocutor.