Entre unidades verbais e não verbais: a construção do conteúdo temático e a literatura como actividade de linguagem

This article combines the multidisciplinary perspectives of Text Theory
and of Socio-Discursive Interactionism, which consider text as an empirical and
unique product, which is produced in its own socio-historical context and belongs to a certain language activity, which is considered as playing a central role in human development and actions. Our study is focused on literary texts, considering Literature a language activity, a collective phenomenon of producing and of circulating texts, whose main purpose is to throw light on the contexts and properties of general activities. We characterize this praxeological dimension of language through the analysis of literary texts produced at the time of the Portuguese Dictatorship or refering to it, with regard to a particular aspect of language functioning: the relationship between text and genre. In our corpus we identified verbal and non verbal units – especially the
subversion of linear reading and the use of white spaces, which both compose a fragmentation code – whose articulation allows the text to remain uncoded to the censor’s eyes and for a public reading.