Communication seen as a model of dramatic production of meaning among the social outlaws of the Brazilian sertão

The purpose of this thesis is to reveal communication as an interpretive process, as a symbolic form capable of reproducing reality, and finally, as a model of social and dramatic production of meaning. Just as religion, science, myth, philosophy, politics and technology have intimate contact with reality and reproduce specific ways of interpreting it, communication, by its necessary use of language and discourse is another specific way of knowing and interpreting reality. By producting texts which mimetize reality, communication reproduces life symbolically and historically.Message in communication is usually sent by means of a medium and this process of transmission and reception is only possible through the intervention of language. But all language is a paradox: at the same time, it unites and separates men as they are engaged in the process of apprehending reality. It draws the subject closer to reality as it also distanciates, being based on the sign which both hides and reveals reality. It is concretized in texts, works, and discourse, which are both close and far from reality by their objective tendency which characterizes them as things. Thus, the discourse of reality, which is what communication purports to be, is both true and false, close and far. In this way, communication unites and separates men, parodoxically.Joao Guimaraes Rosa reiterates in his novel 'Grande Sertao: Veredas' that 'life is dangerous and telling a story is difficult.' In another analogy, communication is problematic with regard to a reality which is always both easily and difficultly accessible. 'Events' are more than simple occurances: they gain 'meaning' as mimetic discourse extends and amplifies their significance and as communication places them within a specific culture, giving them at the same time comparative relief by confronting them with meanings from other cultures.The test which follows tends to justify communication as one of the viable models for apprehending and interpreting reality. Literary discourse was chosen to demonstrate, onto-logically and dramatically, that reality is close and far from us at the same time