Does not Acre exist? In unnews, it does not

Abstract In this study the main aim is to show how referential and/or referential and attributive nominal expressions are able to build a social identity to Acre's state. To do it, unnews were analyzed. Unnews are humoristic texts posted in Desciclopedia site that parody news from different media. The theoretical discussion is based on the concepts of social identity and referential process, both formulated by Critical Discourse Analysis and Textual Linguistics. The present study explains that the terms selection which composes nominal expressions is responsible for producing different meaning effects. In our analysis the goal of this type of text is to build humorous social identities, as long as the nominal expressions doubt about Acre's existence. In our point of view, this strategy shows that this state became a reason for making jokes.