Intertextualidade na obra a trança: análise dos recursos intertextuais e suas contribuições para leitura e escrita na formação de docentes

Abstract

This study analyzes intertextuality in the work A Trança, by Laetitia Colombani, and investigates its contributions to teacher education, especially in the development of reading and writing skills. Grounded in the conceptions of dialogism and intertextuality proposed by Bakhtin (1997), Fiorin (2010), and Koch, Bentes, and Cavalcante (2012), the study is based on the understanding that texts are constituted through dialogue with other discourses, voices, and sociocultural contexts. The research adopts a qualitative approach of an interpretivist nature, characterized as bibliographic and documentary. The corpus consists of the work The Braid, whose narrative presents the trajectories of three women situated in different contexts: Smita, in India; Giulia, in Italy; and Sarah, in Canada. The analysis was organized into five categories: intertextual relations at the thematic level; textual and discursive organization; strategies for articulating the narratives; character construction; and manifestations of explicit and implicit intertextuality. The results demonstrate that intertextuality constitutes one of the main mechanisms for the construction of meaning in the work. Although the protagonists belong to different cultural realities, their stories are interconnected through recurring themes, such as the condition of women, social exclusion, sexism, inequality, resistance, and the search for autonomy. This thematic recurrence produces an effect of proximity among the narratives and allows the reader to recognize shared human experiences across different historical and cultural contexts. The analysis also revealed the presence of structural parallelisms among the three stories. All the characters face situations of oppression, experience moments of crisis, and undergo processes of personal transformation. The alternation of the stories encourages comparison among the different realities and reinforces the universalization of women's experiences. In this context, the metaphor of the “braid” assumes a central role, functioning as a symbolic element that materially and discursively connects the three trajectories. Another relevant result concerns the presence of cultural, religious, and social allusions. References to the Indian caste system, the religious practices of the Tirupati temple, Sikh culture, and the Canadian corporate environment broaden the interpretative complexity of the narrative and require the reader to mobilize diverse cultural knowledge. In addition, forms of explicit intertextuality were identified, such as references to the god Vishnu, the Talmud, and specific religious traditions, which contribute to the expansion of the text’s meanings. The analysis indicates that intertextuality in The Braid simultaneously performs aesthetic and educational functions. Aesthetically, it organizes the narrative structure and promotes the articulation among the protagonists’ stories. From an educational perspective, it fosters the development of critical reading and reflective writing by stimulating the ability to relate texts, recognize cultural references, and interpret different discursive positions. Thus, the study highlights the potential of intertextual analysis as a theoretical and methodological tool for teacher education and for the teaching of Portuguese Language and Literature.