CAREER, SUCCESS AND HAPPINESS – DISCURSIVE ASPECTS OF THE MAGAZINE VOCÊ S/A

Abstract

ABSTRACT
In this paper, we analyze the discourses concerning entrepreneurship, success and happiness that are embodied in VOCÊ S/A magazine, based on the notions of discourseand discursive memory, as proposed by Pêcheux (1975, 1983a, 1983b, 2012). We also observed how these discourses or meaning effects relate themselves to the notions of working, qualification, entrepreneur ship, success, spirituality and happiness. Therefore, besides Pêcheux, we used the works by Maingueneau (2004, 2010a, 2010b, 2014), Orlandi (1999) as well as other important authors in order to build up the historical contextualization of the approached themes. To guide the analyses, we formulated the following hypotheses: i) VOCÊ S/A magazine materializes discourses that link personal and professional life; ii) there is in VOCÊ S/A the materialization of discourses about the entrepreneur-individual’s success and happiness and the professional-individual. These hypotheses allowed us to develop the following objectives: i) to verify how discursive memory updates/renews discourses linking personal and professional life and how this (re)update determines the way of “being” of the professional-individual; ii) to analyze which discourses about success and happiness are materialized in VOCÊ S/A magazine and, also,to check how biopower effectsthe materialized discourses in/by the aforementioned magazine. The research results show that the utterances take up a discursive memory about the personal and professional life of the individual and the requirement of a search for qualification demand in the labor market. Thus, we find in the utterances meaning effects that indicate ways of behaving to the co-enunciator in order to have a satisfactory life, and a way of being and acting to become a productive professional and consequently an accomplished and successful one. In this perspective, we also noticed that the magazine enunciator presents himself/herself as a wise, a counselor, who enunciates from the place of those who have certain knowledge about entrepreneurship, leadership, the ways of managing the finances and of how to maintain a mental and emotional balance. The research also showed, by means of the notion of biopolitics, that the professional-individual in VOCÊ S/A is subjected to the economic laws of the market, believing that this way he/she will achieve success and happiness.