The Treatment of Deontic Modality in the Rhetorical-Functional Perspective

Possible in the Classroom Space?

Abstract

Through deontic modalizing linguistic expressions, the one who speaks or writes expresses assessments of the state of affairs in terms of a system of moral, legal or social norms and, in doing so, constructs images of himself in the discourse. Deontic values ​​range from the extremes of obligation to prohibition, through permission. Such expressions are present both in informal speech contexts - when a guardian of a child says, for example, that he should not cross the street without looking sideways - and in contexts marked by a high degree of formality - when a politician says in his speech in the Chamber of Deputies that we should not tolerate this or that situation. Based on the assumption that the objective of the Portuguese language teacher is to contribute significantly for students to expand their competence in oral and written use of the language (ANTUNES, 2003; BNCC, 2017), we propose a reflection on the possibilities of working with deontic modality category from a rhetorical-functional perspective (MENEZES, 2011). In this article, we will walk a path from theory to practice, presenting proposals for activities that can foster reflection on the effects of meaning produced by deontic modalizing expressions in real contexts of use of the Portuguese language.