Journalistic headlines about violence against women: analysis of the multifunctionality of the "and" connector

Abstract

In this article, we observe the use and functionality that the "and" connector takes in journalistic headlines, based on the assumption that it can assume causal, adversative, and temporal values, depending on the nature of the sentences it articulates. We stem from the theoretical contributions of authors who deal with the "and" connector and other similar connectors prioritizing works that focus on their multifunctionality in English, French, and Spanish. To analyze the use of the connector in headlines published in Espírito Santo's newspapers A Tribuna (AT) and A Gazeta (AG), we used a corpus of 115 news items in which the "and" connector appears. The results reveal that in headlines in which the connector "and" articulates two propositions, the privileged connector operation considers the event expressed in the sentence preceding the connector chronologically prior to the event described in the second. Furthermore, the connective function also renders the preceding sentence of causality nature. In these cases, we observed that the woman performs the first action while the man performs the second, but the woman suffers it. In these occurrences, the woman's action justifies a consequent action of the man. The analysis of these headlines verified that the articulation of information through the "and" connector might deliver a meaning that justifies the violence suffered by women.