O campo léxico da “corrupção” em editoriais jornalísticos: uma interface linguístico-cultural

Abstract

From the perspectives of Lexical Theory and Linguistic Anthropology, the present work analyzes the extent to which lexical units published in journalistic editorials, alluding to the theme 'corruption' and organized in a lexical field, reflect aspects of the relation lexicon, language, and culture. As a theoretical reference, it was chosen authors such as Sapir (1961), Coseriu (1977), Biderman (1987), Laraia (1986), and Duranti (2000), who respectively deal with Ethnolinguistics, Linguistics, Lexicology, Cultural Anthropology, and Linguistic Anthropology. The following methodological course was traced for the development of the study: at first, the definition of the source and corpus, followed by the consultation of Brazilian newspapers, with a data survey on the lexical field “corruption”. Subsequently, the data were quantified and organized for further analysis from the perspective of Lexical Theory and Linguistic Anthropology. The universe of recorded data gathered lexical units such as investigar ('to investigate'), desviar ('to divert'), transparência (transparency), moral ('morals'), combate ('combat'), votação ('voting'), investigação ('investigation'), recurso ('resource'), imposto ('tax'), among others. Through the analysis, it was noticed that complex lexical units such as poder pública ('public power'), saúde pública ('public health'), patrimônio público('public patrimony'), interesse público ('public interest'), and dinheiro público ('public money') denote a change in the perspective of corruption actions that previously assumed a more individualized role. In addition to linguistic aspects, the work contemplated the extralinguistic dimension, being also considered elements of social and, mainly, cultural life.