A representação de atores sociais em documentos orientadores para jovens em cumprimento de medidas socioeducativas: uma análise linguístico-discursiva

Abstract

This study aims to investigate, through the theoretical lenses of Critical Applied Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis, and by means of a linguistic-discursive approach, the representation of social actors (van Leeuwen, 1997) in official documents directed at young people subject to socio-educational measures. The primary objective is to uncover potential ideological effects (Thompson, 2002) embedded in such representations. The focus is placed specifically on how these adolescents are portrayed in the documents, based on the assumption that they belong to a socially marginalized group and are, therefore, exposed to multiple forms of violence. To this end, the analysis draws on van Leeuwen’s (1997) subcategory of ‘inclusion’, particularly the distinction between the ‘activation’ and ‘passivation’ of social actors. The research corpus comprises three policy documents: the National Plan for Socio-Educational Assistance (Brazil, 2013), the Bahia State Plan (Bahia, 2015), and the Ten-Year Socio-Educational Plan for the City of Salvador (Salvador, 2015), all in effect between 2015 and 2024. We identified and catalogued all references to adolescents undergoing socio-educational measures across the three documents. Using the AntConc software, we analyzed the frequency and distribution of these references and examined the discursive contexts in which the adolescents were included. This allowed us to assess whether these inclusions were positive or negative, and whether the adolescents were represented as active agents or passive recipients of action. Findings reveal that the vast majority of representations rely on passivation, portraying adolescents as subordinated to the legal mandates of the socio-educational system. The few instances of activation are not empowering, as they center the adolescents’ agency on the crimes they are accused of, rather than on their potential. These patterns suggest that the representations in the documents are part of a deeply harmful social framework underpinned by capitalism. Drawing on Fairclough’s (2003) concepts of interdiscursivity and intertextuality, the study identifies the convergence of three dominant discourses across the corpus: the legal-positivist discourse (Mascaro, 2016), capitalist discourse (Rocha, 2021), and racist discourse (Moura, 2019), all of which contribute to the ideological positioning of the documents. Ultimately, the research shows that these texts function as instruments that reinforce and legitimize asymmetric power relations and the continued oppression of marginalized groups, particularly the adolescents subjected to socio-educational measures.