Contemporary successful discourse in the capitalization of subjects

Abstract

Success is not a mere lexical item. Success feeds and foments a huge market capillarized by the mainstream media and self-help literature. In each sphere of activity, the discourse of success seems to develop resources to perpetuate itself. One of these refers to the meanings attributed to success, while the other is linked to the creation of idealized production conditions in which effects were found to be spreading. Aiming to analyze the mechanisms of constitution of the repercussion of success in the media and in self-help literature, we chose three works whose syntagma success is manifested in their respective titles, so that they give rise to senses of social determination about their functioning: "Além do topo: o sucesso e sua felicidade não têm limites" (2011); "O sucesso ao seu alcance" (2010) and "Manual do sucesso total" (2000). To do so, we will use the conceptual and methodological apparatus of Discourse Analysis derived from the works of Michel Pêcheux, aiming, with the secondary purpose, to problematize and understand, from the comparison of the results obtained in the analyses, the discourses of capitalization of success. As a result, success was understood as a discursive and, consequently, social phenomenon not restricted to the media; we have seen that success has a grammar more or less of its own that links it to the field in which it is disseminated. Thus, we perceive that self-help literature has different characteristics from the success media; in each of which success is described in a way, creating a discursive formation, at the same time that it establishes the ideological formation of a successful market.