Being / becoming bilingual: the role of family and school in maintaining/ developing children’s bilingualism

 This paper aims at reviewing literature regarding bilingualism, presenting some definitions in the field, specially highlighting the idea that this definition is linked to the question “In what degree is the individual bilingual?”. It will evidence the different ways of acquisition and the role family and school play in developing/ maintaining the children’s bilingualism. Therefore, attention will be given to the bilingual individual’s languages and their classification in relation to the concepts of mother language and second language. Finally, the role of education and the need to develop linguistic consciousness in the students will be discussed highlighting the importance of turning learners into individuals without linguistic prejudice and critic in relation to the role of languages in the society.

THE IMPLICATION OF PLAY AND FANTASY IN THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE MEANING OF CHILDREN’S ENUNCIATION

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of issues related to the meanings of children's enunciation, considering particularly the role of play and fantasy. To achieve this, we have based ourselves on theoretical and conceptual contributions from the Theory of Enunciative Operations in association with cognitive psychology, through its position towards the construction process of the enunciations and their meaning (CULIOLI, 1990; DE VOGÜÉ, FRANCKEL, PAILLARD, 2011) – and towards interactions characterized as routinized, integrated into the concept of format (BRUNER, 1983), still stressing the relationship between play, fantasy and language in early childhood (WINNICOTT, 1982). Throughout this study we presented the analysis of the speech of a male child, GUS, registered between 24 and 35 months of age, provided by published audiovisual data, recorded and transcribed through the CLAN system, that is part of NALíngua, a databank that is integrated to interdisciplinary research project coordinated by DEL RE (UNESP/FCLAr-CNPq). The analysis focuses on GUS interactions that are observed at the play with different car toys, a themed card game, also about cars, and the animated film's plot “Cars”(PIXAR, DISNEY, 2006), that are presented within a wide range of supports for the child to interact with, stimulating his verbal and nonverbal production. By examining its presence in the process of acquiring structural aspects of the language, we demonstrated how the child is able to adopt representations accessed by the use of words and expressions, due to an intersubjective process of adjustment that integrates fantasies and ludic experiences.  

VISIONS OF THE WORLD AND THE SELF IN CHILDREN´S LITERATURE: COMMENTS ON THE WORK A BOLSA AMARELA, BY LYGIA BOJUNGA NUNES

Starting by the productive flourishing that children’s literature has been through between the decades of 1960 and 1980, this paper analyses the most inovating aspects of the book A bolsa Amarela (1976), by Lygia Bojunga Nunes. This literary piece is highly relevant because it incorporates an inovating structure combined with an inovating theme. In this sense, aspects such as language, fantasy, the seek for identity and individuality in an oppressive family environment and the constant questioning of family structure are all delineated here. In this way, A Bolsa Amarela is a proof that there are no restrictions concerning the young readers, since it is possible to approach the most intimate and complex feelings of the young people. Besides, this literary piece metaphorically represents Brazil in the 60‘s by focalizing the child’s viewpoint, revealing inumerous situations which constitute real analogies to dictatorship in Brazil, resulting in  thorough criticism to reality.