By HENRIQUE BRAGA & MARCELO MODOLO*
From Caetano Veloso to divergent templates
Shortly after the publication of the Enem (National High School Exam) Language test, tropicalist Caetano Veloso submitted himself for a moment to one of the questions faced by more than 3 million Brazilian students, on 5/11/2023. In video published on their social networks, the artist analyzed the alternatives of an item that explored, comparatively, two of his songs: the eternal “Alegria, alegria” and the recent “Anjos tronchos”.
The video is delightful: with the calmness of someone walking against the wind, without a scarf or ID, Caetano confesses: “When I looked, I thought they were all of them.” Actress Paula Lavigne, his wife, asks, while recording: “Don’t you think it’s B?” “That’s right,” Caetano Veloso replies and, later on, concludes: “But B and D are apparently the most refined.”
The difficulty that the author of the text himself faces when trying to decide on a single alternative raises questions not only about the multiple-choice item assessment model, but also about the reading itself. Is there such a thing as a “correct reading”? Can anyone decree what a text means?
The construction of meaning is not a one-way street
Em previous article, we discussed why the author cannot be given the primacy of the last word on the meanings of his own text, however counterintuitive this may seem. Scholars of Textual Linguistics argue that intentionality is indeed one of the factors of textuality, but they do not place it above other more tangible and relevant factors, such as cohesion (which concerns the management of linguistic forms that give unity to the text) and coherence (which, broadly speaking, corresponds to the semantic unity between the parts of the text, as well as the unity of meaning between the text and the universe – real or fictional – in which it is inserted).
From this perspective, textualization itself (something like the construction of meanings through texts) is not understood as a totally autonomous individual creation, as if the enunciatee (reader/listener) only received content deposited in his/her mind by the enunciator. Rather, in the terms of Luiz Antônio Marcuschi, “a text is a proposal of meaning and it is only complete with the participation of its reader/listener”.
In other words, the meanings of the text do not exist. vitro and are only realized when the reader/listener can mobilize linguistic and cultural knowledge to reestablish the cohesion and coherence proposed by the author. In this way, in addition to “wanting to say”, the speaker uses linguistic resources available in the language to guide his interlocutors in this task of resorting to shared knowledge and, thus, constructing meanings. If there is no meaning without collaboration, the author cannot be seen as the “all-powerful master of his text”.
Exam templates – convergence is the rule
Still on the subject of the latest edition of the Enem, the unofficial answer sheets published after the exam are an interesting indication that it is indeed possible to create questions that assess students' reading skills. Before the official answer sheets are released, different educational groups analyze the items and publish their answers. Although the solutions are made by different teachers, in different regions of the country and without access to the expected answer, the rule is convergence – normally later confirmed by Inep, the agency responsible for the exam.
As expected, however, it is the occasional discrepancies that usually draw attention. In the case of the item involving Caetano Veloso's songs, the unofficial answer keys predicted alternative B as correct, which was confirmed in the official answer key. In another item, however, a curious phenomenon occurred: all the unofficial answer keys predicted the same answer, which was later contradicted by the INEP answer key. This is the question:
Although several educational groups predicted alternative B (possibly understood as the “least bad”), option C was indicated as “correct”. In this case, some may regret that we cannot count on the prediction of the writer Olavo Bilac, who left us in the distant year of 1918. Even so, using textual elements (from the base text and the alternative), we can safely argue that, unless further analysis is done, there is a mistake in the elaboration of the item.
This disagreement in relation to the official answer key is due to very palpable textual elements, as they are linguistic resources exhaustively studied by the grammatical tradition: the use of the article and the degrees of the adjective.
According to alternative C, Bilac's text would anticipate “the future erasure of the marks of slavery in the social context”. As subtle as it may be, there is a difference between “erasure of marks” (without the use of an article) and “erasure of marks”. In the first case, the absence of an article means that the noun “marks” does not assume a specific referent, thus suggesting that some scattered marks would disappear – which would be an acceptable reading, although reductive in relation to the text and what the item's statement requests.
However, as the alternative is written, the definite article attributes a specific reference to the noun and, being in the plural, this referent would be the totality of the so-called “marks of slavery” – which, according to the answer key, would disappear in the future, in Olavo Bilac’s view. This interpretation is hardly plausible when compared with the first paragraph of the text, which mentions a certain memory of the period, to be recorded even in museums.
This reading – which, in our opinion, could be revised by INEP – is also in spite of the beginning of the second paragraph. This passage begins with this period, in which we highlight the comparative degree of the adjective: “But their indignation can never be as great as that of those who were born and raised in the midst of horror (…).” The excerpt argues that future indignation cannot reach the same intensity as that experienced by those who lived through slavery, but in doing so, the speaker assumes that there will be indignation. This prevents the reader from inferring, based on the excerpt, that Bilac’s text highlights the ills of the slavery period by “anticipating the future erasure of the marks of slavery in the social context.”
Exceptions prove the rule
Given the importance of a test like the National High School Exam, it is more than desirable to reduce noise like the one mentioned above. However, this cannot be mistaken as a general criticism of the exam: on the contrary, a Language test that largely prioritizes text comprehension and linguistic variations should be celebrated, inducing basic education curricula to follow the same path.
Furthermore, the predominant convergence between the unofficial answer keys and the official answer key reinforces the central point of this article: the materiality of the text makes the act of reading a less subjective and intuitive activity than common sense sometimes suggests.
*Henrique Santos Braga He holds a PhD in Philology and Portuguese Language from USP.
*Marcelo Modolo is professor of philology at the University of São Paulo (USP).
A first version of this article was published in Journal of USP.
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