Pesquisadores da linguagem no ciberespaço: um estudo sobre o gênero home page pessoal

Abstract

The first personal home pages appeared in the mid 1990 s, ever since this discourse genre have been growing more and more popular. Considered an emergent genre whose structural organization isn t still consolidated, it is known for the idiossincratic originality that marks each exemplar, what makes it difficult for one to shape archtypes of the genre (Killoran, 2003:1-2). The consolidation of its structural organization will be implied from the increasing dissemination of its use (Dillon and Gushrowski, 2000:1-2). Some studies (Miller, 1995;Chandler, 1998; Dillon and Gushrowski, 2000; Komesu, 2001; Marshall, Motta-Roth and Reis, 2004) have found textual and contextual aspects that can be considered characteristic of the genre. Aiming at elaborating a description of the contextual and textual configuration of this genre, in this study, I examine academic personal home pages written by famous and consecrate researchers interested in studying language. From this investigation, I intend to:a) identify what the authors talk about in their home pages; b) analyze the ethos ascribed to the author and identify feasible relationships between author and reader; and c) examine how the genre is constructed by the resources of the electronic medium. For that purpose, in the textual analysis, six home pages were analyzed in the light of the relevant literature. In the contextual analysis, interviews were carried out with the authors of those home pages. As revealed by the analysis of interviews and texts, the authors seem concerned with making their work available for free on their personal websites. The contextual analysis showed that they seem to be open to establish contact with the reader of the home page, since all of them provide postal and/or electronic address on the page. Moreover, the communication mediated by the home page seems to have increased the contact between the author and the international academic comunity. The results also show that the authors lexicogrammatical choices for representing themselves signal to a set of personal values proper of good members of the academic comunity they take part in. It may be concluded that this genre consists of a good medium for professors and researchers to make their work known and to publish it for everybody around the globe, for them to access this work for free. It means promoting democracy of access to information and knowledge. These findings point out the relevance of describing and explaining social and discursive practices in the ciberspace in order to take advantage of the electronic medium in favour of collaborative and democratic forms of interaction as well as construction of meaning.