Uses of the periphrasis ir + Infinitive in master's dissertations: a stylistic-functional look in the context of the discursive genre

Abstract

The purpose of this article is i) to reflect on the relationship between different instances of discursive genre and style; and the multifunctionality and forms of ir (go) + Inf periphrasis; and ii) to illustrate with a stylistic-functional analysis. From a functionalist and discursive perspective, twelve master's dissertations in the areas of Linguistics, Law and Mathematics were analyzed, and the main results show that: both types of periphrases – ir (present) + Inf and ir (future) + Inf – occur in the vast majority of dissertations, as variants in the function of the present future tense; the areas of knowledge display particularities of use – Linguistics and Law activate more the temporal subfunction of the indeterminate future and the historical future, while Mathematics mobilizes more the determinate future and the imperative deontic modality; the metadiscursive subfunction can be seen as characteristic of the genre; the authors do not always follow the average usage of the respective areas, showing individual styles either in terms of forms or in terms of (sub)functions. It is concluded that: style permeates all instances of the genre, in the tension between regularity and singularity; the subject's agency may interfere with the relative stability of gender; forms and functions (and their correlations) are resources mobilized in the stylistic-compositional finishing of the genre.