The Evaluation and Comment relations (Rhetorical Structure Theory - RST): Between the make believe and the provide awareness

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing the relations of Evaluation and Comment, often used in texts of the corpora of the projects ORTO (Rhetorical Organization of Opinion Texts) and ORTDC (Rhetorical Organization of Science Journalism Texts). The study is based on the ideas of Bernárdez (1995), who considers “text” as a strategic confi guration, integrated to the Rhetorical Structure Theory (RST) (Mann e Thompson, 1992), which offers the rhetorical relations that describe the options of the producer (P) when producing the text. On the one hand, in the texts considered as opinion texts, the relation of Evaluation is established to “make believe”, as it constitutes an argument or judging attitude which aims the reader’s (L/R) support. On the other hand, the Comment relation in the Science Journalistic Texts point out to a subjective remark that, considering its constative characteristic (Charaudeau, 1995), leads to “provide awareness”. This strategic organization may confi rm that the text is a structural system whose parts and organization principles may be described as elements articulated from a whole. This way, it is possible to conclude that certain specifi crelational units work as a part of a table of prototipicality pointing out to a discursive order in a specifi c genre.

Key words: strategy, opinion article, popular science article, Evaluation, Comment.