Movimentos argumentativos em audiências de conciliação no PROCON

Abstract

The conciliation hearings in PROCON are characterized by dispute of antagonistic points of view between claimant (consumer) and responding (supplier), mediated by the representative of this institution. In this scenario, the conflict of interests between parties depends on an intense discursive negotiation/construction of “versions of the events”. Thus, talk-in-interaction plays a key role in the negotiation, because the whole process of argument is made through it, and depending on the argumentative power of the participants, the negotiation will succeed or not. Given the specificities of this situational context, the objectives of this study are to investigate the argumentative movements (MA, cf. GILLE, 2001) submitted by participants in three PROCON hearings in a city in Minas Gerais, to verify in which phases of the audience they occur and to analyze the framings that guide the participants in relation to what is happening "here and now" in these interactions. The data were recorded on audio and transcripts according to the convention of the conversation analysts (SACKS, SCHEGLOFF and JEFFERSON, 1974), and they belong to the collection of the CNPq Research Group "Language and Society: theoretical and empirical aspects". The research is qualitative and interpretative (ERICKSON, 1986; DENZIN e LINCOLN, 2005) and follows the assumptions of Interactional Sociolinguistics (GOFFMAN, 1974, [1979] 2002). For analysis of argument, we take as a basis Vieira´s argumentative models (2003, 2007), whose components are position, dispute and support (SCHIFFRIN, 1987), categories by which are associated argumentative movements (GILLE, 2001), supporting arguments referenced by literature (GARCIA, 1978) and optional evaluation movements (VIEIRA, 2007). The study results show that, in the context of PROCON, beyond the argumentative movements provided by Vieira (2003, 2007) also emerge specific support movements of this institutional interaction, such as theauthority argument, support via common sense and legal evidence, argument with greater force in the context of the investigated hearings.