Gabriel Neves Flaquer and João Luiz Coelho

1. An isolated Brazilian tribe hidden deep in the Amazon rainforest has vowed to
“take up bows and arrows” against government forces threatening their territory with
deforestation.

a. Modality: the author modalizes the discourse to emphasize that the subject,
"an isolated Brazilian tribe", vowed to fight the government forces. This is to
express obligation from the tribe that they will indeed fulfill their vow.

b. Subject: "An isolated Brazilian tribe" is inanimate and it was probably chosen
because of the journalistic genre, which is reporting a situation.

c. Commodities and speech roles: information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

2. The Arara clan in the Para area of the forest warned “there could be deaths” if
Brazil’s president Jair Bolsonaro refuses to stop hacking down trees for trade.

a. Modality: the main modalization in the sentence is used inside quotes to

represent that that was explicitly vocalized by someone. The modalization
used here is of ability. It is used to express that if the condition is true, i.e.
Bolsonaro refuses to stop hacking down trees, there is a possibility of
occurrence of deaths. Still, the author's verb choice is critical; "threaten" could
also be used here, but that is not how the author chose to express this idea.
Instead, he stated that this is just a "warning" for if the following condition is
true.

b. Subject: Inanimate subject "The Arara clan" is here used also in a way to
report their warning, because of the journalistic genre.

c. Commodities and speech roles: information is being given.

d. Mood: Conditional.

3. Bolsonaro, a far-right champion of tree felling and a climate change skeptic, has said
he wouldn’t give up “one centimeter more” of land to indigenous communities.

a. Modality: "Would" is used here to indicate a future-in-the-past action. If

rephrased, it would be like: "Bolsonaro says he will not give up [...]". It is used
in the sentence to express negation; in this case, that no land will be given up
to indigenous communities.

b. Subject: "Bolsonaro" is the animated subject of the sentence. It is exposed to

the reader that he is the one who would not give up any centimeter more of
 land to indigenous communities. However, since it is a journalistic text, this
sentence is a report of another sentence that Bolsonaro himself probably
vocalized.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

4. Since he came to power in January, illegal logging on Arara lands — which cover an
area the size of 264,000 football pitches — has intensified, according to outraged
natives.

a. Modality: There is no modality marker in this sentence. Apart from the

adjuncts, it is a simple sentence: "Illegal logging on Arara lands has
intensified".

b. Subject: Inanimated subject Illegal logging. This subject was probably chosen
because it is not of interest of this news article to go into details on who
actually commits these crimes, so a passive structure was used in order to not
mention them.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

5. Tribe chief Tatji Arara, 41, told reporters:

a. Modality: No modality markers in this sentence. This structure was used

because of the journalistic genre.

b. Subject: Tribe chief Tatji Arara, animated subject.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

6. “Every day, we find new trees cut down.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: We. Since it is the tribe chief speaking, he/she is speaking for the
whole tribe, of experiences they have been going through.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.
7. I’ve never seen anything like this.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: Animated subject "I." Following the previous sentence, in which

he/she uses the "we" subject, here the tribe chief is giving his/her personal
opinion on the matter.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

8. “Bolsonaro is poisoning the spirit of the people.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: Animated subject "Bolsonaro." In this sentence, the tribe chief is

putting Bolsonaro as the main actor of the wrongdoings.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

9. Lots of people think he will take our land, but we won’t let him.

a. Modality: No modality markers on the main clause. However, on the two other
clauses, the auxiliary verb "will" is providing the action that is most feared, i.e.
Bolsonaro taking their land and a statement that they will fight this.

b. Subject: Animated subject "Lots of people." The choice of subject here is

generalized - we do not know who "lots of people" are.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

10. “If the illegal extraction of wood continues, our warriors will take up their bows and
arrows. There could be deaths.”

a. Modality: Use of "will" in the same sense of "could", because of the

conditional character of the sentence. It is used to indicate that an action will
take place if the condition is fulfilled.

b. Subject: Animated subject "Our warriors."

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

 d. Mood: Declarative.

11. He added that indigenous people set fire to a truck used to illegally carry timber in
February.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: Animated subject "Indigenous people." Opposed to the previous

sentence, in which the tribe chief stated that their warriors would take up
arrows and bows, in this sentence it is stated that not only the warriors are
taking action in the matter. With the generalization from "warriors" to
"indigenous people", the impression is that even more people are up to the
fight.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

12. The Arara territory, home to around 300 indigenous people, has been under
government protection since 1991.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: Animated subject “Arara territory”. In this sentence it is known that

the territory for the community of Arara has been under the protection of the
government for more than 30 years.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

13. In February, Arara leaders wrote to the authorities warning that tribal elders were
considering evoking an ancestral ritual of making a traditional flute “with the skulls
of the invaders”.

a. Modality: Here there are makers of modality of modalization and probability,

as the tribal elders reflect the possibility of actually performing this ancestral
ritual.

b. Subject: This sentence the author brings up the situation where the leaders of
the Arara community wrote to the authorities warning that if something would
not be done about the environmental criminals, they would find themselves
forced to take action, including the aforementioned ancient ritual. This
sentence seems to be placed in order to emphasize the “primal”, “wild” and
 even “uncivilized” nature of the Arara community, through the words “tribal”,
“elders” and “ancestral ritual”.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

14. Hundreds of representatives of indigenous groups left the forest to travel to the
nation’s capital Brasilia yesterday for a three-day lobbying mission to bolster their
land rights.

a. Modality: No marks of modality found.

b. Subject: This sentence indicates the actions that some of the members of the
Arara community had when faced with no response and action by the
government.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

15. The Arara live in single-story wooden houses, many of them painted blue, that form
an arc around a well-used grass football pitch.

a. Modality: No modality markers found.

b. Subject: Inanimate subject "The Arara".

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative

16. Residents are fiercely attached to their traditional culture, with some decorating
their faces and bodies with motifs inspired by local plants or animals using pigments
from jenipapo fruit.

a. Modality: No modal marks found.

b. Subject: This sentence represents the attachment that the Arara community has
with their heritage/culture, by using word such as “fiercely” the author
suggests the intensity of the feelings that this community has with their own
culture, and, as a consequence, with nature.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.
17. Everyone can speak their ancestral language,

a. Modality: There is a high value of modalization in this sentence, through the

use of the word “everyone”, indicating an absolute.

b. Subject: This sentence represents the information that the Arara community
speak their mother tongue, relating to their respect for their heritage and
culture.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

18. and many elders refuse to use Portuguese, the mother tongue of Brazil’s colonizers.

a. Modality: There is a use of the inclination modulation in this sentence, by the

use of the word refuse.

b. Subject: The second part of this sentence completes the sense that the
community of Arara values and respects their original tongue rather than
portuguese. The use of “refuse” seem to indicate a strong dislike for the
language or the learning of the same language.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

19. Local prosecutors fear a bloodbath is looming.

a. Modality: No marks of modality found.

b. Subject: Animate as the prosecutors fear for the worst in this situation, that the
Arara community will be obliged to do justice with their own hands, the
prosecutors are reacting to the situation presented.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information is being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

20. “We are witnessing an escalation of tensions,

a. Modality: The modality here has a function of showing something that was
happening at the time the phrase was said, the community was observing the
escalation of a conflict, passive to the whole situation, not being able to do
anything in order to intervene properly.
 b. Subject: The speaker in this quote is talking about a situation that is happening
around him, but here there is an animate subject, as the action taking place is
the witnessing of the events that follow between the Indians and the
government/ environmental criminals.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

21. and indigenous people are often forced to fulfill the role of federal law enforcement,
who are far and few between.

a. Modality: The in this segment expresses usuality, by the use of the word
‘often’, showing the reader that this type of situation has happened before, and
the Arara community had to take action and responsibility for the crimes
against nature by their own hands.

b. Subject: Here the subject is active, as the indigenous people are then forced to
take action, and the speaker talks about how this situation happens not by an
absolute option of the indigenous community of Arara, but the lack of any
other conceivable options.

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.

22. “It’s very disturbing to see the Indians playing the role of the police because they are
often crushed in this kind of conflict.”

a. Modality: The speaker in this sentence tells the reader the emotions felt by the
community/those who are seeing this situation takes place, and brings up a
high level of commitment to this statement, as there are no uses of words that
may “weaken” the value of the disturbance these people are being presented,
disturbing is the state of the situation at that time.

b. Subject: The Indians, although the Actors of the action (playing the role of the
police) are not the Subject, as the quote is structured in a way that the fact that
this situation is happening is the subject of this quote (if the listener/reader
would respond to this claim, they would respond with a “no, it isn’t” for a
negative response, and not “no, they don’t”).

c. Commodities and speech roles: Information being given.

d. Mood: Declarative.