The resources of Modality in journalistic texts

Abstract

This is paper aims to interpret the uses of Modality     resources in the construction of the point of view in texts by columnists in a large circulation newspaper. The main hypothesis is that the positions assumed/defended in opinion columns formally depend on modulation/modalization resources for the construction of the writers' positions. To meet this purpose, texts were selected that deal with the theme of covid-19, written by columnists Cecília Machado (who writes from the economic perspective) and Alexandre Schneider (who writes from the educational perspective), both in the newspaper Folha de São Paulo. After the collection, a description of the modulation/modalization resources was produced, for its consequent interpretation based on Functional Systemic Linguistics (HALLIDAY; MATTHIESSEN, 2014). The data indicates that the construction of meanings in texts does not rely on lexical resources in an isolated or purely formal way, as suggested by the systemic-complex methodological approach proposed in Mendes (2016, 2018). In this study, we found that the lexical-grammatical resources of the Modality System (FUZER; CABRAL, 2014) are productive in the texts under analysis. Therefore, these resources act and contribute to the construction of the text to build the columnists’ point of view.