A relação gramatical objeto direto : implicações para o ensino de língua materna

This paper attempts to investigate the discourse manifestations of the grammatical relation direct object with respect to the syntactic, semantic and pragmatic properties that underlie this element. The research adopts theoretical orientation of the functionalism from North American and Brazilian schools inspired in Givón (1995, 2001), Hopper and Thompson (1980), Chafe (1979), Furtado da Cunha, Oliveira, Martelotta (2003) inter alia. From functionalism, the research uses principles of iconicity, markedness and informativity and it analize categories of transitivity, grounding and animacy. This research is anchored in prototype model (TAYLOR 1995); construction grammar model (GOLDBERG 1996, 2002). Both theoretical orientations share the view that language is a malleable living organism subject to socio-cultural context. Grammar is then the result of created, maintained, and systematized linguistic patterns developed from and used for language use. According to a functional linguistics and cognitivist linguistics verbs are stored in the speakers lexicon in syntactic-semantic frames which are more frequent. These frames carry information concerning obligatory and optional arguments and the semantic roles these arguments take in the clause. The analysis focuses on the semantic type of the verbs and its relationship with the argument encoded as a direct object observing the aspectual nature of verbs. Direct objects are classified according to their morphology (lexical or pronominal noun phrase), semantic role, informational content and animacy. This study discusses pedagogical implications with relation to how the grammatical concepts touched on this paper are treated in school textbooks. The empirical data come from Corpus Discurso & Gramática: a língua falada e escrita na cidade do Natal (FURTADO DA CUNHA, 1998). This corpus is composed of texts that contain spoken and written modalities. These modalities are in turn organized according to different types: personal narratives, retold narrative, description of preferred place, procedural place, procedural description and report on argumentation. The sample data totals 40 texts produced by four language consultants of the last graduation date. The paper shows that the same syntactic structures (formed through Subject-Verb-Object) correspond to different semantic-pragmatic structures in relation to specific communicative purposes even verb is an event, process or state. The argument structure are not aleatory but are related to experience; that is the way humans conceptualize the world and talk about it

"Eu pensei que ia sair daqui falando inglês": um estudo sistêmico-funcional sobre papéis sociais atribuídos por alunos de um curso de Letras/Inglês

Research in the area of teacher training in English as a Foreign Language (CELANI, 2003, 2004, 2010; PAIVA, 2000, 2003, 2005; VIEIRA-ABRAHÃO, 2010) articulates the complexity of beginning teachers classroom contexts aligned with teaching language as a social and professional practice of the teacher in training. To better understand this relationship, the present study is based on a corpus of transcribed interviews and questionnaires applied to 28 undergraduate students majoring in Letters/English emphasis, at a public university located in the interior of the Western Amazon region, soliciting their opinions about the reforms made in the curriculum of this Major. Interviews and questionnaires were used as data collection instruments to trace a profile of the students organized in Group 1, with freshmen and sophomore undergraduates who are following the 2009 curriculum, and Group 2, with junior and senior undergraduates who are following the 2006 curriculum. The objectives are to identify, to characterize and to analyze the types of pronouns, roles and social actors represented in the opinions of these students in relation to their teacher training curriculum. The theoretical support focuses on the challenge of historical and contemporary routes from English teachers initial education programs (MAGALHÃES; LIBERALLI, 2009; PAVAN; SILVA, 2010; ALVAREZ, 2010; VIANA, 2011; PAVAN, 2012). Our theoretical perspective is based on the Systemic Functional Grammar of Halliday (1994), Halliday and Hasan (1989), Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), Eggins (1994; 2004) and Thompson (2004). We focus on the concept of the Interpersonal meaning, specifically regarding the roles articulated in the studies by Delu (1991), Thompson and Thetela (1995), and in the Portuguese language such as Ramos (1997), Silva (2006) and Cabral (2009). Moreover, we ascribe van Leeuwen s (1997; 2003) theory of Representation of Social Actors as a theoretical framework in order to identify the sociological aspect of social actors represented in the students discourse. Within this scenario, the analysis unfolds on three levels: grammatical (pronouns), semantic (roles), and discursive (social actors). For the analysis of interpersonal realizations present in the students opinions, we use the computational program WordSmith Tools (SCOTT, 2010) and its applications Wordlist and Concord to quantify the occurrences of the pronouns I, You and They, which characterize the roles and social actors of the corpus. The results show that the students assigned the following roles to themselves: (i) apprentice to express their initial process of English language learning; (ii) freshman to reveal their choice of Major in Letters/English emphasis; (iii) future teacher to relate their expectations towards a practicing professional. To assign the roles to professors in the major, the students used the metaphor of modality (I think) to indicate the relationship of teacher training, while they are in the role of a student and as a future teacher. From these evidences the representation of the students as social actors emerges in roles such as: (i) active roles; (ii) passive roles and (iii) personalized roles. The social actors represented in the opinions of the students reflect the inclusion of these roles assigned to the actions expressed about their experiences and expectations derived from their teacher training classroom

O Macrogênero drama Norte-Riograndense: uma análise de gênero e de discurso sob a perspectiva da linguística sistêmico-funcional

The focus of this qualiquantitative research is the phenomenon we are denominating Drama-of-Rio-Grande-do-Norte, which contemplates short verse texts from the oral tradition, sung and presented on stage by women in communities on the south coast of the northeastern Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Norte. This tradition harkens to the medieval romance of the Iberian Peninsula (CASCUDO, 2001; GURGEL, 1999; GALVÃO, 1993; MAGALHÃES, 1973; ROMERO,1977). The objective of this research is to: identify what characterizes the genre Drama of Rio Grande do Norte; situate this genre within a systemization of genres from the oral tradition in Rio Grande do Norte; investigate the interpersonal relationships of power and solidarity through the role of the women in the discourse, how they see themselves and others, pointing out which elements of the world they evaluate and to identify representations of the feminine in the discourse. The theory of Genre and Register of Martin and Rose (2008) and Generic Structure Potential of Hasan (1989, 1996), which has as a base the Systemic Functional Linguistics of Halliday and Matthiessen (2004), Eggins (1994) among others, offers a theoretical framework for the characterization of the genre through the identification of stages and phases configuring its typology the individual schematic structure and its topology its relation to other phenomena in the oral tradition. Other groupings were mapped of the ‗Macrogenre , from the model of Martin and Rose (2008) as a continuum on two axis: between the poles of how the genre circulates orally x in writing, and recited/individually x staged/collectively; as well as mapping the samples with relation to power using the same model, but with the poles of individual voice x collective voice on an axis between increased power and diminished power. Eleven texts described as Narratives and one Anecdote were selected for the analysis of Attitudes, and Negotiations of power. Through the quantification of semantic discursive resources in the discourse systems of Appraisal (MARTIN; WHITE, 2005) and of Negotiation (MARTIN; ROSE, 2007), as well as reflections about humor (EGGINS; SLADE, 1997) we identified the Attitudes and the Negotiations of interpersonal roles. The quantification is based on the theories of Corpus Linguistics (BERBER SARDINHA, 2010), using WordSmith Tools 5.0 (SCOTT, 2010). Our results show that the Drama-of-Rio-Grande-do-Norte is characterized as a Macrogenre in the Community of Oral Stories, in the Family of Street Theatre/Games, composed of five genre types: Narratives, Praise, Complaints, Anecdotes, and Exemplum. The Macrogenre is characterized by its being circulated orally, staged collectively and the texts analyzed configure in differing degrees of power between men and woman. In synthesis we observe that through humor, the Drama-of-Rio-Grande-do-Norte functions to offer a space for women to voice, comment, judge and orient about social conditions in their communities, such as alcoholism, domestic violence, inequalities before the law etc., as well as circulating positive appreciations of rural/coastal culture and judgments about the behavior of members of the speech community, the role of women being to establish and reinforce norms. We anticipate possible benefits of the addition of the genre analyzed in literacy projects in the schools of Rio Grande do Norte