Marechal Rondon : percursos discursivos de construção de um mito brasileiro

Abstract

This thesis work discusses the role of the verbal and the visual in mythical construction of Marechal Rondon. Textual and visual materials are mobilized from the Comissão Rondon C – expedition to implement the “Linhas Telegráficas e Estratégias de Mato Grosso ao Amazonas”. The constitution of the discursive corpus is done through the archivist route combined with the notion of pathway presented by Maingueneau. Through archival research, photographs and their respective captions were selected, as well as publications by/about Marechal Rondon made available in the works of the "Coleção Indios do Brasil" composed of three volumes, “Impressões da Comissão Rondon” authored by Major Amílcar Botelho de Magalhães, as well as the work “Missão Rondon: apontamentos sobre os trabalhos realizados pela Comissão de Linhas Telegráficas Estratégicas de Mato Grosso ao Amazonas”, published by the Federal Senate, and the thesis by Maria Fátima Roberto Machado that discusses Rondon's relationship with indigenous peoples, more precisely with the Pareci peoples, known as the Rondon Indians. The study aims to analyze, in a discursive view in different media, such as written documents and photographic-images, the construction of the Rondon myth. The theoretical foundation is based on an interdisciplinary dialogue between the New History, proposed by the theorists Le Goff (1996), Burke (2004), Nora (1993) and the French Discourse Analysis by Pêcheux (1938-1983) and Maingueneau (2008, 2020). The analytical results indicate that the textual and visual materials build three discursive paths: pathfinder, civilizing agent and protector of the indigenous people who, in addition, build the figure of Marechal Rondon as a Brazilian myth.