Uma análise da fala em público a partir da teoria corpomídia: experiências, problematizações, novas perspectivas

Abstract

The goal of this research is to revisit the field of studies on "public speaking" beyond the scope of the usual instruction guides. This thesis promotes an epistemological shift toward a discussion about the relationship between body and environment, and between speaking subject and listening subject. Two central hypotheses are proposed. The first is that, more than a mere speech, public speaking is a cognitive action that exposes the complexity involved in the transit between mind and body, body and environment, nature and culture, subject and community, reason and emotion. Therefore, to make public speaking more communicative and efficient, it is essential to create conditions to promote changes in cognitive habits as well as to intervene in the organization process of metaphors of thought. This hypothesis therefore demystifies the proposals of speaking instruction guides that focus only on the final result, the visible behavior involving gestures, tones of voice and the appearance of the speaking subject. The second hypothesis recognizes that studying public speaking focusing on the cognitive processes that drive it reveals new kinds of mediations. The methodology is supported by literature review and the empirical observation of speakers such as journalists, communicators, television hosts, university students and professors, lecturers, executives and business groups, as well as people with cognitive difficulties that impair communication. The theoretical framework employs concepts from communication theory, with emphasis on the mediabody theory proposed by Katz & Greiner and the socalled sensitive strategies studied by Muniz Sodré. As a supplementary bibliography, there are references to studies on the philosophy of mind (e.g., Damasio 2010, 2004, 2003 and 2000, Lakoff and Johnson 2002, 1999, and Johnson 2007) which provide more solid knowledge about skills such as perception, attention, memory, communication and locomotion, as well as the neurophysiological bases of complex activities such as the construction of verbal language. The expected result is a greater integration among areas of knowledge that investigate human communication, attempting to expose, by means of the specific characteristics of public speaking, different expressive possibilities of the subjects. Such possibilities often are anesthetized by normative instructions, whose starting point is the hierarchical relationship between the speaker and the passive listening subject. Thus, there is a political implication that will only be signaled in this thesis and could possibly be developed in a post-doctoral research