A representação da saúde: uma análise crítica do discurso da revista Women s Health Brasil

Abstract

This study was conceived to fill a gap in the area of Linguistics, as it focuses on the issue of wellness in a Brazilian female targeted magazine. The work aims to discuss how wellness is presented in the magazine Women's Health Brasil, whose mission specifically aims at the wellness condition of the modern woman. The initial finding that is made is that the topic of wellness is discursively commodified, i.e., it is treated as a kind of product. This finding raised the need to investigate in what ways this process occurs. As a theoretical basis, the perspective of Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1992) was adopted, a theory and method of analysis that combines the analysis of linguistic material and considerations on the social use of language with its impact on the discursive component of personal identity. The March and April 2015 issues, as well as the magazine s website, were analyzed in order to complete the three levels of analysis proposed by Fairclough. First, micro and macro linguistic evidence were found (lexical, syntactic and discursive patterns), pointing to the existence of social roles assigned to women and to power relations. As wellness is transformed into a product, it appears to be sold to a specific female audience, whose identity is designed and built discursively in terms of asymmetry in relation to the magazine. The second part of the analysis was at the level of discursive practice. This level encompassed intertextuality, which appears as a strategy that reinforces the values conveyed by the magazine. Finally, it was identified that there is an identity formation that tends to portray the reader as someone lacking the information necessary to be the woman conceived by the magazine. The level of discourse as a social practice shows that language and society are indeed put side by side in the formation of concepts and values that often become crystallized. This is similar to what occurs in the discourse of the magazine. The conclusions of the study point to the objectification of wellness through discourses that induce consumption, personal dissatisfaction and a false relationship between magazine and reader. This relationship is articulated mainly by the attempt to sell a number of products, wellness being a mere pretext.