Um probleminha de memória, um probleminha de cabeça, um probleminha de esquecimento: as estratégias referenciais em narrativas de um grupo de apoio

Abstract

Alzheimer's Disease is a demential pathology neurodegenerative that modifies the neurological, cognitive processes mainly in elderly persons. The stigma regarding this pathology can be explained by the continuous degeneration of the cognitive, physical and linguistic capacities that send us to a frame not only of death, but, especially, of isolation and desertion. Despite Alzheimer's Disease be a commoner evil in elderly persons, the family still does not recognize the difference between the deficiency related to the memory as a characteristic frequently harnessed the advanced age of a person, of the mental confusion and/or loss of memory that shapes the commonest sign of development of the disease. The Support Group is assumed as a place of social practice where it is possible to share the interaction experience, information and dilemmas on a condition that is little diffused in our society. Aiming on behalf of the community and equality of rights, the Support Group aims to act in the struggle against any type of stigma around this disease. In this area, this dissertation analyses the interactions occurred in the institutional context of a Support Group to relatives and/or caregivers of persons with Alzheimer's Disease, situated in a city of the south of Brazil. In the context of this pathology, the Support Groups constitute important socialization places where relatives and/or caregivers they can share experiences of care and familiarity with the person with Alzheimer's Disease. In addition, the presence of these persons in the meetings hearing or producing the narratives enhances situations’ knowledges still not faced by the relatives, demonstrating that the interaction by the language as a reality understanding. The aim of our analysis relies on the referenciation strategies and in the ways of development of discursive topics, considering the narrator and the narrative audience. Our main objective is to analyze how the oral narratives are constituted in the textual context and interactional, looking for the specific objectives: (a) to describe Support Group meetings narrative format, from the studies that address this type of oral text under the approach of recurrent structures and as product of face to face interaction; (b) to check the place of the audience in the process of coconstruction of the oral narratives produced by participants who are familiar and caregivers of persons diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease; (c) to analyze the strategies of referenciation in the development of discursive topics, when is taking into account the narrator and the audience. The theoretical frame is underpinned in the field of the Conversation Analysis based in the theories of the Labov’s canon (1967;1997) about the studies of the narratives of Koch (2001), Mondada and Dubois (2003) and Cavalcante (2003) about referenciation; Jubran (1992) about the discursive topic tied with the proposal of Support Group. The corpus analyzed in this work is originated from 24 hours of video recordings from 8 Support Group’s meetings, as part of the project “The discursive topic and the interactive context in the analysis of the interactions of a Support Group to the relatives and caregivers of persons with Alzheimer’s Disease”, coordinated by the Prof. Dr. Caio Mira. The excerpt choice criterion was the presence of narratives that shows the Support Group meeting routine of relatives and/or caregivers of persons with AD emphasizing the goal of study. The results of this inquiry demonstrate the necessity of discussion about this reality from the perspective of who interacts with this pathology in order to they fell supported to obtain information on the disease, removing the social stigma.