Metáforas, gestos e aspectos conversacionais de interações em grupo entre membros da Assembléia de Deus

Abstract

This dissertation aims to analyze metaphors used to talk about religion in group interactions by members of God Assemblies. To do so, we turn to cognitive theories of metaphor, since religious language as religious rituals present metaphorical characteristics (JÄKEL, 2002; LEME, 2003; LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1980, p. 166; 1999, p. 565). The corpus compilation involved the conduction of group interactions in which the participants discussed religious issues and also more general concepts that are not directly related to religion, such as love, friendship, family, politics, etc. The initial hypothesis was that even when dealing with concepts not directly linked to religion, the participants would use metaphors related to religion. To carry out the filming, we sought by participants from the same church for each interaction, as in this case the church service have a similar organizational structure and similar content, which may contribute to the emergence of similarities among the metaphors and gestures used by the participants. Considering the social role of the participants, we have significantly different dynamics, because the first interaction involved two pastors and two believers, and the second, four young people of similar ages, that go to the same church. The analyzed data enabled the verification of how these metaphors are used in a real and non-idealized context, unlike the introspective data that formed in large part the basis of pioneering studies in the field of Conceptual Metaphor Theory (TMC; LAKOFF; JOHNSON, 1980; 1999). Moreover, in a multimodal context, we may observe how gestural metaphors often occur in order to complement verbal metaphors, showing an active metaphoricity in even more conventionalized verbal expressions, and also metaphorising something that in verbal language is literal, approach initiated especially in the studies of Cienki & Müller (2008). Thus, this dissertation is inserted in the theoretical interface of TMC in its multimodal front and studies of language in use, considering language in its oral form. We aim to deepen a linguistic and multimodal analysis of interactions of members of Pentecostal churches, to observe if there is a tendency to use religion metaphors even when dealing with issues not directly related to religion.