Bullying

Violence in language and its perlocutionary dimension

Abstract

This article, inscribed in the field of Applied Linguistics, dialogues with other fields of knowledge and mainly addresses the idea that language is a form of action. Fundamentally, it discusses the possible forms that this action can take, approaching violence and its manifestation in the form of bullying. As we see violence not only as a destructive concept, I try to understand how the meaning and resignification of subjects, through bullying, become possible and are outlined from a violation of the other. In order to outline the harmful and violent way in which bullying manifests itself, an analysis is carried out of the symbolic forms invested against the victims, through which a series of effects originate. I mainly analyze testimonies available in digital media, which make up the documentary Marcas de uma Geração, available on YouTube. I approach the ways in which different subjects are diminished, depreciated, excluded and violated through bullying, revealing the way in which language is used to hurt the other, especially the one that represents the gender, the race, the body that one does not want to accept. This discussion about the central role of bullying in the formation process of the subject means, at the limit, that other fields, other critical approaches, in addition to language studies, should include the issue of this form of violence in their approaches.