Sociodiscursive imaginaries of the black woman: Evaristo Conceição’s Isaltina Campo Belo tale analysis

Abstract

The position of the black woman in society has been hard set up and the way she is represented in the cultural production contributes to the maintenance of stereotypes and reductionist conceptions of her real personality. Conceição Evaristo, through engaged literary writing, not only paves the way for the voice of black women to be heard, but also dignifies and humanizes them. Based on bibliographical studies and the theoretical-methodological framework of Semiolinguistics, by French linguist Patrick Charaudeau, we proceeded with the discourse analysis of the text Isaltina Campo Belo, one of 13 tales in the book Insubmissas Lágrimas de Mulheres (women unsubmissive tears) (2011), which is totally starring women. The concept of sociodiscursive imaginary was mobilized and an analysis showed that the author's literary text reveals and recreated the imaginary that inhabits a collective memory of Brazilian society. In addition to the tale, the corpus of analysis consisted of paralinguistic elements, such as texts in which Conceição Evaristo explains her writing style, “escrevivência” (writing based on day by day life), texts that cover theories concerning black and intersectional feminism, in addition to Serge Moscovici’s concept of social representations, and engaged literature.