Investigating the Role of Pragmatic Connectives in Journalistic Textual Genres

Abstract

This paper examines the use of pragmatic connectives in journalistic texts, aiming at understanding issues involved in discourse articulation. The data we are working on is composed by opinion texts and news (written in Brazilian Portuguese) produced by proficient writers and published in a diary newspaper. Based on the Modular Approach to Discourse Analysis, we assume that the study of pragmatic connectives must be integrated in a global model of the complexity of the discourse organization. Thus, we present the description of the relational organization form of these texts, since this organization form deals with discursive relations as well as with the contributions of pragmatic connectives to their interpretation. Then, through the description of the relational organization of these texts, we discuss the observable differences between the genres through the use of pragmatic connective