Email forwardables: Characterizing the teacher community in brazil

Abstract

In this article, we analyze four of twelve forwardables, that is, email messages, received over a period of four months with the objective of comprehending the discourses about teachers and the teaching profession which pervade the teachers' cultural space in Brazil. For the purpose of analyzing these forwardables, we combine the concept of cultural domain (Spradley, 1980) and the methodological principles of critical discourse analysis (Fairclough, 2010). Our analyses show another aspect of group identity besides that of professional activities, which is a sense of occupying a place of low social prestige. The forwardables, therefore, by being sent on from teacher to teacher in a continuous chain become a form of social cohesion of this particular group.