LER O ARQUIVO HOJE OUT OF REDUCIONISTIC PRACTICES

Abstract

In his article Ler o Arquivo Hoje, Pêcheux (1982) questions the relation between the historical and psychological aspects connected to the reading of files, the mathematical and computer aspects connected to the treatment of textual documents and the increase of researches in formal linguistics, circulating around the discourse analysis. The author points to a reading based on two cultures: the literary and academic ones. The first one is, traditionally, related to the reading of files, although the second one is also able to produce this gesture. The fact is that, if we compared both ways of reading, we could show much more differences while we are relating them to the types of readers: the person who has been authorized to read, to speak, to write on his behalf and the one who has been submitted to the practice of copying, transcribing, indexing, classification and coding. Some are given to the task of producing original readings of files, there is, interpretations, and others, are given to the duty of sustaining a literal reading of documents. This contradictory movement covers a political dominance and at the same time, maintains the "power" through political acts, says Pêcheux. This reading work division implicates the relation between society and the establishment of its own historical memory.