VEM PRA RUA: A STUDY ABOUT RESSIGNIFICATION

Abstract

The present study, part of our master's research, aims at, preliminarily, investigating possible changes of meaning concerning the use of the expression “Vem Pra Rua”(i.e. Come to the Street),disseminated by internet users. The posts investigated come from the following websites: Facebook.com; Youtube.com; and g1.com.br. With the help of the software Wordsmith Tools (5.0), the comments made by internet users were processed, generating sentences containing the expression “Vem Pra Rua”. Considering the Corpus Linguistics as methodology, the compilation of those sentences allowed us to investigate the meanings the expression could have acquired, regarding the messages that were collected at two specific time periods: June-July of 2013 and January-March of 2015. As a result, we observed the resignification (FAIRCLOUGH, 2001; SOUZA JÚNIOR, 2015) of the expression “Vem Pra Rua”, whichchanged from a song lyrics verse to become a profile name. This change in meaning indicates the role of social media in social movements interactions and in knowledge exchanges.

Keywords

• social media
• Linguistic
• Corpus Linguistics
• social moviments
• interaction