O conceito de emancipação vem sendo mencionado no âmbito das discussões sobre juventude no Brasil e no mundo. A semiótica de linha francesa pode agregar reflexões importantes a seu estudo, de modo que as análises desta dissertação tomam como base teórica, sobretudo, as obras de Algirdas Julien Greimas e Claude Zilberberg. O corpus é composto por entrevistas realizadas com jovens habitantes da cidade de São Paulo e o principal tema abordado pelos textos orais é a transição à vida adulta, considerando-se, nessa passagem, por exemplo, as saídas (ou não) da casa dos pais ou as buscas profissionais e pessoais relatadas. Além das entrevistas, são analisados os capítulos iniciais da épica africana Sundjata, ou A epopeia mandinga, de Djibril Tamsir Niane. Dentre os resultados obtidos destacam-se a constatação de que, por um lado, o tratamento narrativo prevalece nos discursos sobre a emancipação e, por outro, a noção de acontecimento (objeto da semiótica tensiva) quase sempre se manifesta na etapa da juventude.

The concept of emancipation is often mentioned nowadays in the discussions about youth in Brazil and around the world. The French School of Semiotics can offer contributions to the study of this object. So, this masters thesis makes use of the works of authors such as Algirdas Julien Greimas and Claude Zilberberg as theoretical basis. The corpus is composed by interviews that were taken of young inhabitants of Sao Paulo city (Brazil). The main theme that was addressed by the reports is the transition to adulthood. In this matter, the informants talked, for example, about leaving (or not) their parents houses and about the paths that they had to go through, in order to achieve professional or personal growth. Besides the interviews, the initial chapters of the African epic Soundjata, ou LÉpopée Mandingue, by Djibril Tamsir Niane, were also analyzed. Among the main results obtained, it is possible to mention the presence of the narrative treatment in the speeches about emancipation, as well as the notion of happening (object of the tensive semiotics), that is frequently manifested in the stage of the youth.