3.1 Concept relationship - theoretical orientation of the proposals

The content of P1 can be included in literature studies, a field of study of languages and cultures. Through the investigation, the proponent supports the idea whose content needs a reflection on how literature can be a device of noncompliance in the circumstances of the overpowering of black people in their own land to colonial commands, taking the example of the bitter colonial experience reported in the Angolan writer's novel Boaventura Cardoso. The planned general goal of the investigation witnesses this intention, which fundamentally seeks to understand the ways in which Boaventura Cardoso introduces the demonstration of resistance to oppression.

According to the proposal, the investigation highlights three levels of action, namely (1) recognition of the marks of resistance in the novel, (2) reporting of the ways in which resistance can be used to explain the type of sociocultural oppression suffered by the Angolan people, and (3) development of a reflection leading to the rescue and revaluation of Angolan literature. The analysis of the defense of the planned content for the theoretical-epistemological framework, designated in the text itself as “Theoretical Assumptions”, highlights four detailed discursive movements:

Firstly, I witness the set of an introduction of the rationality that leads over the structure of discursive movements in the forefront, the one the proponent considers as his own, with the categorical statement that Angolans would once again be interested in uplifting their culture, as if this statement could be a thesis or a starting point assertion. This proposition belongs to an author and taken as the starting point for the theoretical proposal for this pre- research project.

The second movement highlights the purpose of the text as it intends to analytical and synthetically explain the expression of resistance based on text extracts from the chosen novel. However, the proponent thinks that in order to make this survey it would lack evidence regarding the definition of the notion of short story. Perhaps the proponent had understood that the chosen proposal would have its generic outline in the short story.

Due to this understanding, he introduces some selected meanings of the short story according to the listed authors as a genre of narrative mode (^{REIS; LOPES, 2000}), a small narrative in which there are few characters and minimally characterized (^{REIS, 2018}) and as a narrative mode in Africa (^{AFONSO, 2004}). I notice he considers that through this last one he sets up the conceptual matrix of ideas that are going to lead the reflection on Boaventura Cardoso's book, the frame of the proposal for the investigation.

In the third discursive movement, there is an anxiety to identifying the voices of speeches in Boaventura Cardoso's literature. This concern does not have a clear explanation for this interest. Even so, we seek, once again, to use ^{Brait's (2017}) definitions of free indirect speech, which are also not very clear in the concern.

I think that the efforts undertaken to reflect on the topic of voices have to do with the need to feed the perception of which voices would be predominant in Boaventura Cardoso's work. Which makes me understand that what would have made this concern difficult was perhaps the student's lack of theoretical and epistemic positioning or alignment as a proponent of his own pre-research project. As a task, it should be based on specialized literature, explaining how the story is seen as a form of resistance since there are no elements in the text that would direct the theoretical discussion in this direction. Instead, we see a reference to the writer Boaventura Cardoso as a proponent of action against colonialism without any justification in this regard.

According to my analysis regarding this proposal, two important aspects arise: this proposal is about a rich and relevant intent for the investigation of languages in literature specialized branch. However, some false theoretical assumptions have betrayed its richness and relevance.

Let me explain: instead of the theorization of the topic based on colonial and/or post-colonial literature in Africa, which I consider as its conceptual matrix of choice and for which there are several studies and publications, the conceptual elaboration of the proposal is limited to common sense and has set some narrow- minded conclusions about the writings of Boaventura Cardoso. In addition, I find out the invisibility of the proponent's position in relation to his theoretical conviction about the concept and framing of the notion of resistance in literature; there is no any sort of determination of the extent to which the concept of literature can institute an input to studies of this nature.

In relation to P2, the nature of the proposed topic fits the literature studies through issues of women's cultural identity. The chapter’s name is “Theoretical Assumptions” in which, as I did with the proposal above, I also notice its ambition has to do with the need to seek an understanding of how black women are culturally embodied in the novel “Os oito maridos da dona Luísa M. Cruz”.

The theoretical debate on this subject makes up some inspiring discursive movements. To which the student agrees, the first one starts with the statement that cultural identity studies are born at the Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) without any sort of elements for that statement, such as, for example, the date, place and purposes of the initiative. Instead, the first part of the text focuses on the importance of this typology of studies for understanding and battling both the oppression and historical inequalities that black women would suffer. Focus also on the development of such a hypothetical statement occupies a relatively significant extension. However, both statement do not have any reference to the literature that conveys.

The proposal continues, in the second movement, with an attempt to systematize the notion of cultural identity, its location in the colonial era and an attempt to build a reflection on how the identity process occurs in black women. The assessment made of the notion of cultural identity results from the ideas of some authors as the background of experiences and construction of meanings of a people, the way in which people face the world and, as a result, position themselves. In this sense, language is meant to be a creative element of identity.

Additionally, it is stated that the type of food people eat constitutes one of the defining elements of cultural identity. The list is so long and it is possible to grasp some aspects associated with it such as notions of culture, the relationship between individuals and their own organism, the ways in which people recognize themselves or they are recognized in their own environment throughout historical and social conditions.

The third moment introduces an exposition on cultural identity as located in the colonial period. Some aspects of this exhibition point out how different cultures reflect the culture of colonial dominance through different devices, such as the denial of particular history and policies, the absorption of some groups by others, the adaptation of indigenous people to the new reality to which they are subjected, being born a new symbolic and discursive production.

In the fourth movement, there is a sense that points out how a black woman's identity process would be held, even starting from a comparative approach with white women, referring the discussion to historical factors. Stating that any cultural configuration has its conception based on the concept of the differentiation of color of people, the mixture of cultures and peoples, even with the colonizer, makes inevitable the assumption of other identities. It is under this understanding that Brito; Silva and Sousa’s (²⁰¹³) quote states that black identities cannot be seen in a single way, highlighting the idea that they result from a combination of multiple factors.

In this way, the text flows in this direction with the summoning of several authors in the process of construction of the cultural identity as black women, and culminates with the idea that the construction of cultural identity obeys social and historical dynamics that cannot be viewed unilaterally.

Having exposed the four movements, I see that generally the mentioned pre-project has “legs” to constitute a scientific research project because there is a discussion on issues linked to identity and culture, a discussion linked to a theorization of these concepts to support the notion of cultural identity. However, there is a very large gap between the theoretical work and the goals set for the investigation. These goals, besides being confusing, do not specify what should truly be done to investigate the ambitious research problem. Which means that there is no theoretical and conceptual relationship between the content and the theoretical framework of the proposal.

3.2 Dialogical Strategies of Proposals for Scientific Research

In this part of the article, I analyze the usefulness of the dialogical procedures of the students’ pre-projects. To do that, I align them with the concept of dialogism from Bakhtin's perspective (a. Principle through which the statement is constituted, b. Compositional form of the statement and c. Principle through which the individual constitutes himself and acts) and with the enunciation processes held by Maingueneau with a focus on the notions of intertext and modalization.

In P1, we notice the predominance of utilization of the compositional form of the utterance, that is, of the speech where construction of meaning uses strategies that refer to other texts. For the analysis purposes, I selected two dialogic procedures:

(1)The colonialists were forced to realize that they could not control the entire cultural field. This is why young political leaders almost all started out as writers: before moving on to practice, they were forced to write the theory of possible practice. Writing, as the Cape Verdean Claridade group did, for example, but especially the Angolan Message group, was already fighting (^{MARGARIDO, 1980}, p. 21) and

(2)The construction of a nationalist consciousness, contributing to resistance and the anti-colonial struggle (^{ALVES, 2013}, P. 1).

The first quote is a direct one and has to do with the cited author's understanding of the role of literature in confronting colonialism. On this basis, it would perform the function of proof that literature truly has this vocation if there was a previous argument that led to this meaning. That is not the case. Perhaps another functional alternative to this quote would be if it had been placed as an epigraph that would function as a general alignment of the discourse that would guide the entire theoretical framework.

Lacking at least these two elements, this quote not only lacks framing but also, more than being an external speech to the citing statement, it becomes itself the citing speech in which the other's point of view is assumed as truth in the new text replacing the empty of what would institute the backbone of the citing statement.

The case of the second quote, the situation is clearly noticeable in that it is involved as an “authority quote”. That is to say, the value it carries on comes from the standing of the personality who utters it. Which makes the enunciator identify himself on him. I must mention that I cannot ignore, even if these are isolated cases, the presence of direct quotations that operate, sometimes, as a definition of a concept and, at other times, as mechanisms for identifying the attributions that shape them.

I should also not ignore that there are also evidences of the use of indirect forms of citation that allow the text a relative interpretative and argumentative autonomy from its proponent. However, both the interpretation and the arguments made lead me to state that they seem to be restricted only to the cited speech, which reduces the dialogical ability with which the text can be expanded.

The “Theoretical Assumptions” of the case P2 do not expose clear and coherently the dialogical function of its text. The reasons I find for this statement is that the entire first part (cultural identity in the representation of black women) is made up of much dispersed statements held by the student on the topic that he himself proposes to investigate. Such statements establish, at least initially, inconsistent speeches about the planned object of investigation itself (how black women culturally recognize themselves).

I point out some established speeches in the text. The first one is the meaning that cultural studies are fundamental in combating stereotypes and promoting inclusion and equality. Secondly, is the speech that makes us to understand that the study of black women's identity falls within this general framework with the need to study it to understand and combat the historical oppression and inequalities that they suffer in their daily lives. Moreover, the last one has the sagacity that through research, the value of black women will allow an adequate social representation in the media, academia, etc.

Set in this way, the above speeches not only do not have an internal articulation but also, when analyzed from the point of view of their enunciative set, they do not establish any type of internal meaning relationship. This is where the analysis becomes more interesting when these speeches are seen from the viewpoint of the functioning of language in Bakhtin, which makes it clear that “all utterances in the communication process, regardless of their dimension, are dialogical” (^{FIORIN, 2016}, p. 23). The question that remains is the following one: if the dimensions of the identified speeches above are not clear, how can those speeches be said that they are still dialogical?

I think that in this case, the available solution to me is to consider the event of two basic opinions in such speeches, which can help us to define the voice of the enunciator and “the one in opposition to which he constructs himself” (^{FIORIN, 2016}, p 27). It also seems to me that the enunciator's voice is not clear due to the lack of general theorization of cultural studies. From the identified speeches, those to which the enunciator opposes, I must accept them in the following standings: If, on the one hand, they defend the black women inclusion and equality, this means that we are facing anti-racist speech. On the other hand, if you want to understand and combat the oppression of black women, I believe that you oppose exploitation, colonialism, discrimination, etc. In this context, such speeches should dialogue with studies related to (de)coloniality as an entry point for the theoretical assessment of their research proposal. In this sense, they would be facing an anti-colonial speech.

Thus, I notice that this proposal discusses the concept of cultural identity, begun by the etymology of the notion of identity. In addition, on this basis, I also notice that there is a very significant effort to make a kind of “argument by implication”, that is, if the notion of identity designates “everything that is identical”, then talking about cultural identity has to do with addressing everything that is identical with culture.

Thus, I mention what would characterize the notion of culture, among several notions listed by the authors that the proponent calls for his theoretical framework, there are two main aspects such as signs and the recognition of the subject guided by the historical and social conditions of survival. These are notions that will lighten the theorization of what cultural identity was like in the colonial period and the understanding of how black women would identify themselves culturally.

To discuss colonial cultural identity, the proponent turns to several authors who restate that such a concept relates to the denial of particular history and politics. This source becomes possible through argumentation by implication regarding this conception, while recognizing that, in addition to being different, colonial cultural identities are based on the processes of subordination of black people to the social and cultural traits of the colonizer. This way of speech construction prevails until the end of the text.

The analysis on P2 reveals that it is important to state that the construction of arguments by implication is a task that requires not only a comparative approach to the supposed and targeted content. It also fundamentally requires an ability that makes it possible to confront voices in veiled or clear controversy, taking into account the object that gives rise to the discussion. Which is not highlighted in this proposal.

In both analyzed pre-projects, the proponents' ways of faithfulness to their speeches (support of the thesis or object of study) are not evident when analyzing certain linguistic-discursive qualities or marks they attribute themselves to their statements in the text. This means that modalization, as an instrument of textual production, appears as a necessary and fundamental instrument to take into account when designing processes of scientific research projects, whether at the undergraduate or postgraduate level.