The The emotions triggered in letters from pilgrims to Father Cícero as an argumentation strategy

Abstract

This article aims to analyze the argumentative aspects present in letters from pilgrims addressed to Father Cícero, in order to observe how those writers are able to express emotions in their speech and what extralinguistic and linguistic aspects are used with the aim at making such emotional impressions in the letters. As theoretical framework, the research is based on the principles defended by Amossy (2018), Bakhtin (2016) and Braga (2007). The corpus of the investigation consists of five (05) letters and, based on those texts, the results reveal that the authors trigger the emotions (pathos) in their speech (logos), regarding the image (ethos) revealed of themselves, being, therefore, these three principles (ethos, logos and pathos) articulated in a persuasive engagement. In such creation, the image of the author achieves a value dimension thanks to the interactional aspects involved in the social, cultural and enunciative contexts which include the daily and family sphere as a mediator and regulator of emotional effects, aside from the linguistic resources used to instigate pathos effects raised in pilgrim letters. The emotional aspects work as an integral part of the discourse in an attempt to influence the reader, taking into account, above all, the audience subjectivity.