I READ AND I DON'T WANT TO READ ANYMORE

DISCOURSE, READING AND EMOTIONS

Abstract

In this article, we present some of the results of the Term paper (TCC) and Scientific Initiation (FAPESP 2023/11570-1), both linked to the general project “Proud readers, ashamed readers: emotions in discourses about reading” (FAPESP 2020/03615-0) that we recently completed. Our aim is to present an analysis of a type of enunciate about reading in which people confess to practices considered to be typical of bad readers or non-readers, without this implying shame or risk to their face. These declarations are made by subjects who have enough cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1999) to provide them with a certain amount of symbolic shielding, so as to authorize them to make statements that are forbidden to other subjects, such as confessing to no longer reading certain genres.It is a sample of this type of enunciate, taken from a text in the newspaper O Estado de São Paulo, that we analyze in this article, with a view to reflecting on the discursive functioning of certain consensuses relating to reading, in which social emotions such as “shame” and “pride” are implicated. To do this, we used principles from Discourse Analysis, the Cultural History of Reading, the Sociology of Cultural Distinction, and the History of Sensibilities and Emotions.