Editorial or letter to reader/editor’s letter? are we talking about the same textual genre?

Abstract

The theoretical framework of this research comes from studies of the Socio-Discursive Interactionism (SDI) performed by the research group DIALE – Diálogos Linguísticos e Ensino (CNPq/UENP), as well as theoretical contributions from studies about the text genre as an megainstrument of work in the process of language teaching and learning. The main purpose of the study is to answer the question: are the letter to reader/editor and the editorial the same text genre or singular discursive practices? To answer this questioning, the paper search to support the notion of theoretical modeling of Barros (2012), coming from the concept of didactic model of SDI, for the elaboration of theoretical models of both studied genres. This research joins a qualitative, approach from an interpretative nature of Applied Linguistics, going by three steps: 1) bibliographical and exploratory, 2) documentary analysis; 3) analytical interpretive. The corpus of analysis of the second research phase consists of texts of the genres in focus, it is collected by texts from different supports – Folha de Londrina, O Estado de São Paulo, Magaziane IstoÉ, Veja, Aventuras na História, Gol, Super Interessante, Saúde, Mundo Estranho, Galileu, Todateen. The results show the existence of two different text genres – the editorial and the letter to the editor – which were, theoretically, model by the research. The goal is to add to the studies of the journalistic field and to serve as an observation instrument of the teaching potentialities of the genres researched, assisting the process of elaboration of teaching materials.