A orientação para o consumo não é brincadeira: uma análise da construção argumentativa de vídeos de unboxing destinados às crianças

• Ano de defesa: 2025
• Autor(a) principal: Araújo, Rafaelle de Freitas Oliveira
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal da Paraíba; Brasil; Linguística; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística; UFPB
• Palavras-chave em Português: Argumentação; Blocos semânticos; Modificadores; Internalizadores; Recursos não verbais; Argumentation; Semantic blocks; Modifiers; Internalizers; Non-verbal resources; Argumentación; Bloques semánticos; Recursos no verbales; CNPQ::LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LINGUISTICA
• Link de acesso: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/36812

This study is part of the field of Argumentative Semantics, specifically within the Theory of Semantic Blocks (hereafter TBS), developed mainly by Marion Carel and Oswald Ducrot (2005). Our general objective is to analyze the argumentative construction of selected unboxing videos aimed at children, based on a qualitative, descriptive-interpretative study. Thus, we describe the meaning of each selected excerpt, understood as the semantic value attributed to the statements. Therefore, in this research, because unboxing videos are a multimodal discursive genre, we analyzed not only the linguistic materiality, but also the non-verbal materiality, based on the theoretical foundation of the Grammar of Visual Design (GDV), by Kress and Van Leeuwen (2021). We consider unboxing videos to be a discursive genre, as we are affiliated with the concept presented by Bakhtin (2016), from which discursive genres are conceived within a social-interactionist perspective, i.e. there is an intrinsic link between the use of language and human activities. However, we want to highlight a peculiarity about this genre, because, while in the beginning this type of video was a more spontaneous and less structured construction, with only consumers sharing experiences when unpacking newly purchased products, today it seems to be an important window for brands to carry out overt consumer orientation. Veiled marketing communication is not permitted by our national legal system, since we are dealing with children, that is, with people who are recognized as being in a situation of hyper-vulnerability. As a result of analyzing the argumentative construction of the selected videos, we identified the importance of modifiers and internalizers for the argumentative movement, reorganizing the aspects, and revealing the meanings that result from the argumentative chains, both evoked from the application of this linguistic modifier/internalizer, but sometimes also through nonverbal resources that act, in a coordinated or isolated manner, also as modifiers/internalizers, as demonstrated in the analyses. In summary, the description of the videos, using the analytical tools mentioned above, revealed argumentative chains potentially capable of guiding children toward consumption, or at least generating in them the desire to consume: 1) reinforcing the predicate (product presented) through performing modifiers, 2) ostensibly overemphasizing the product, making it the most special of all, this category being very abundant in the corpus and always associated with various nonverbal resources; 3) retaining, through the category of internalizers, only the aspects/arguments that were favorable to the products being presented; 4) through the scarcity of unrealizing modifiers, a category present only when associated with the description of a fake LOL; and 5) through multisemiotic construction, reinforcing imagery patterns that simulate closeness, friendship, intimacy, and equality between YouTubers and viewers, which makes children even more vulnerable to the consumerist discourses repeatedly conveyed. The popularity of these videos can be measured by the thousands or millions of views recorded on the YouTube platform, which it is indeed a window of access to reach children who grow up watching this type of content as entertainment, when, in fact, as we could see in our analyses, they are being trained and guided toward the human activity of consumption.