METAPHORS ABOUT PUBLIC ACTIONS AND POLICIES AIMED AT THE HOMELESS POPULATION IN FOLHA DE S. PAULO: THE CASE OF REPRESENTATION OF ASSISTANCE

Abstract With theoretical support of critical discourse studies (VAN DIJK, 2009, FAIRCLOUGH, 2010, RESENDE, 2019) and the interdiscursive analysis of public policies (Resende, 2018, Fischer, 2016), in this paper I present results of a project that focused on representations in online journalism regarding public policies aimed at the homeless population. The research project “Representação de políticas públicas para população em situação de rua como gestão do território: metáforas espaciais na Folha de S. Paulo” (CAPES 88881.172032 / 2018-01) considered the main newspaper of the city of São Paulo, in its digital platform. In a corpus of 105 texts on public policies analyzed through a QDA software, the paper focus on metaphors about social services towards the homeless population. I take the categories of metaphors proposed by Charteris-Black (2004) as an epistemological key. The analyzes show texts that relate public policies to war, and consistently associate people in homelessness to danger. Metaphors also objectify people on homelessness, which is consistent with the representation of their forced displacements, or associate homeless people with dirt, consistent with the hygienist policies reported in the newspaper.