The limits of context: the constitution of school writing as object of linguistics research

Abstract

In this paper, we present some results of an investigation in which the establishment of school writing as object of linguistics research was observed. The corpus of analysis was composed of research reports produced in the last three decades of the twentieth century, in Brazilian Universities’ postgraduate programs. The analysis was developed in order to observe the constitution of a specific discursive space. The investigation revealed different ways in which school context was defined in relation to extra school context elements. Based on the (re)positioning of contextual boundaries between intra and extra school limits, enunciative indexes were allocated, changing the modes of reference to person, time and space. The positions occupied by the researchers, regarding these indexes allowed the appropriation of the theoretical knowledge used to configure school writing as an object of discourse.