O poder do título: uma análise sistêmico-funcional da persuasão metafórica em cartazes cinematográficos

Abstract

The present study arises from a curiosity regarding the translation of American film titles into Brazilian Portuguese. What draws particular attention is the question of why most titles, when translated into Portuguese, undergo semantic changes, often bearing little or no resemblance to the original. In this context, the study aims to identify possible conceptual metaphors (Lakoff & Johnson, 1980) underlying these translations. To this end, Systemic Functional Linguistics provides a critical framework for establishing meaning relations between the original and translated film titles, emphasizing the role of cultural context in explaining social phenomena and linguistic choices. The context of culture encompasses ways of life, customs, values, and beliefs, and the interaction between the contexts of culture and situation accounts for similarities and differences among texts (Silva, 2018, p. 306). In addition, the analysis extends to the non-verbal dimension, focusing on film posters used for distribution, with particular attention to visual choices and image analysis grounded in Social Semiotic Grammar (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001). Based on these data, the study seeks to identify which metaphors permeate both the translational choices and the visual design of the materials, revealing cultural differences between the source and target languages and contributing to persuasive effects. The research is guided by the following questions: (a) which lexico-grammatical and translational choices stand out in the transition from English to Portuguese, and how do they reveal cultural and functional differences in the persuasive construction of the analyzed titles? (b) How does multimodality, examined through the Grammar of Visual Design, contribute to reinforcing or reconfiguring persuasive meanings in titles and promotional materials? (c) How do dominant metaphors permeate the translations and articulate persuasive effects by connecting distinct cultural repertoires between the source and target domains? and (d) Do the metonymies identified in the titles establish relational links between elements? The investigation is grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics in order to clarify how lexico-grammatical features at the surface level of the text (microstructure) express specific ideologies, identities, and persuasive strategies at the discourse’s deeper level (macrostructure). Preliminary results suggest that lexico-grammatical choices and imagetic details associated with film titles, particularly through metonymy, may reveal underlying meanings triggered by readers’ and viewers’ frames, thereby structuring dominant and persuasive metaphors.