Acessibilidade textual e endereçamento: contribuições bakhtinianas para estratégias de simplificação textual

Abstract

The main goal of the present article is to relate Bakhtin’s concepts of  “addressability” and “presumed reader” to practices of Text Accessibility and Text Simplification. Even though research in these areas usually present linguistic guidelines to apply simplification strategies, there is a clear lack in understanding the “reader” and his/her primary role as the guide of a simplified [re]writing. Thus, Bakhtin’s concepts are fundamental so as to contribute to an awareness about the role of the reader and, from that, guide the adoption of strategies. Moreover, we reflect upon the importance of considering different kinds of media in which information will be made available, once, according to Charaudeau, not only the utterance, but also the way it is disposed, influence comprehension. Firstly, we present a short explanation about Text Accessibility, Complexity and Simplification as fields of study, highlighting the importance of the reader for these areas. Secondly, we cover the concepts of “addressability” and “presumed reader” and the relation between these concepts and accessible [re]writing followed by concepts of accessibility for digital medias. At last, we present an example of a research in which simplification strategies were adopted and one example of informative site with elements that make accessibility more difficult.