O discurso no direito e o direito ao discurso: a tentativa de controle do dizer e o sujeito à margem do ritual

Abstract

In this study we problematize how the witnesses‟ testimonies, which are part of criminal processes, are composed through transcriptions. The objective is to analyze how this discursivity, characterized by Reported Discourse (RD), works, attempting to get the effect of truth through it. The research corpus is composed of four witnesses‟ testimonies which were held in 2009 and integrated different processes that were carried at the First District Court of Santa Maria-RS. The theoretical basis of the study is affiliated with French-Brazilian Discourse Analysis and is based on notions such as discursive memory, conditions of production, explicit and constitutive heterogeneity, which has allowed us to analyze the marks of objectivity and the vestiges of subjectivity which emerge in the linguistic materiality of the transcriptions. Besides, silence, as considered by Orlandi (1997), has made possible for us to identify possibilities of resistance in the discourse of the witnesses. In order to explore the corpus, we have formulated a methodology based on the notion of Reported Discourse (RD), considering three of its following features: the set of questions and answers between judge and witness; the use of dashes and quotation marks. The analysis has made us understand that Law moves the Reported Discourse as a technique for constituting witnesses‟ testimonies which is constituted in two ways: report/orality (RD1) and transcription/writing (RD2). In the analyzed testimonies, we observed marks of subjectivity (RD1) which is intended to indicate authorship under the responsibility of the witness and create an objective effect. On the other hand, we see a fixed structure characterized by a set of questions and answers (RD2) that rules this form of RD, recurrent in all corpuses. In this objective structure however, it was possible to observe the space of resistance through the misconception that brings out the subjectivity in the form of silence. Even with the rigidity of a predetermined order to constitute the witnesses‟ testimonies, there is space of/for the subject and of/for resistance.