The Didactic Dialogue discursive genre:

towards an intercultural and decolonial approach

Abstract

In this study, we aim to analyze how five Didactic Dialogues (hereafter DDs), proposed in a Portuguese as a Host Language textbook, reveal traces of interculturality and decoloniality through the dialogic sequences constructed within this discursive genre. In the theoretical scope, we emphasize that the discursive genre Didactic Dialogues, composed of dialogic sequences (Adam, 2011), should be linked to a generic conception that integrates intercultural and decolonial principles, through socio-historical, dialogic (Bakhtin, 2010), sociorhetorical and cultural (Miller, 1984; Bazerman, 2004) perspectives. In the methodological scope, we adopt a qualitative epistemic framework and select Critical Discourse Analysis as our method, which involves articulating text, discursive practice, and social practice (Fairclough, 2001), and identifying a specific problem, seeking semiotic elements for analysis, and focusing on social practice (Bessa; Sato, 2018). In the analytical scope, the DDs exhibited idiosyncrasies in thematic content, stylistic manifestations, and typified rhetorical actions, despite having highly similar compositional structures. Beyond focusing on the formal and functional attributes of each DD, teachers can explore different sociocultural perspectives, promote linguistic-textual accessibility, highlight power relations, encourage the denaturalization of hegemonic narratives, and foster critical engagement.