THE CHRONOTOPE OF ADVICE LETTER DISCOURSE GENRE: IMAGES OF TIME, SPACE AND AUTHOR

Abstract

We aim at presenting a theoretical discussion concerning the online advice letter discourse genre chronotope. To do so, we review Bakhtin’s Circle studies as well as the sociological researches from Giddens’ perspective. The data is formed by 30 (thirty) instances of advice letter discourse genre published on online magazines: Claudia, Nova and Veja during March 10^th to 17^th, 2010. Initially, we analyze the social dimension of the genre, focusing on the social sphere and its chronotope. We observe that contemporary journalism of online magazines has been characterized as specialized journalism, following multiple discursive paths, among them entertainment and self-help. In relation to the broad chronotope, we perceive that advice letters are constituted in the socio-historical conditions of late modernity, a space-time of existential anxiety, within the culture of risks and the incessant search for answers to problems of social life. With regard to the narrow chronotope of the genre advice letters, in the social situation of interaction, we found that the authorial position is discursively constructed by professionals of different spheres of performance that sign the letters, who are called advisors or articulators by the magazines. As for the prospective interlocutor, we understand him or her as the reader of the magazine, a subject interested in knowing about the intimate problems of others and the solutions proposed for these problems (that, in fact, may be projections of their own). From these results about the genre chronotope, we understand the advice letter as a hybrid discourse genre permeated by the discourse of entertainment and self-help journalism.