Inner discourse and the process of foreig language teaching-learning / Discurso interior e o processo de ensino-aprendizagem da lingua estrangeira

AUTOR(ES)
DATA DE PUBLICAÇÃO

2009

RESUMO

This thesis is the result of a theoretical reflection upon a manner of language realization that, despite being amply investigated in the process of first language acquisition, has not received much attention in the field of second (or foreign) language acquisition (SLA), namely egocentric speech or private speech (term used by researches under the culturalhistorical tradition). Following Vygotsky s discussion on egocentric and inner speech, we have broadened our scope based on the bakhtinian concept of language and the Circle of Bakhtin s reflections on inner discourse, trying to re-dimension the concept of private speech. Most of the work done in the field of SLA conceives private speech as monological and maintains the internal/external, social/private dichotomies. Private speech has thus, being considered as speech strictly directed towards oneself, not having an interlocutor. However, assuming the indistinctiveness of internal and external, and conceiving language as a significant activity, as process, as action and the heterogeneity and dialogicality inherent to language and the speaker, private speech reveals itself as much richer and much more complex. In this line of thought, we consider private speech as traces, vestige, of the activity that occurs in the realm of inner discourse (which always presupposes na interlocutor), indicating not only the internalization of language or the role of language in self-regulation, which has been the main focus of several researchers. Our data, collected during classroom interactions in a private English course for a group of three university students, shows the multiplicity of functions of private speech and how it can often be intertwined with the speech directed at others individuals present in the interaction. Data also indicates its essentially dialogical and argumentative nature (being the argumentation herein considered as acting upon the other . We have observed a dense dialogue amongst words, utterances, contexts; a confrontation of voices and positions (evaluationalvalorative, social, enunciative), indicating the intense movement and interlocution that occur in this speech commonly ignored - or even silenced - in the classroom. It gives us clues as to the work performed by the students/language in the process of knowledge constitution and reveals another dimension of the discursive dynamics in the classroom that, even though often inaudible, also participates and in which several other voices can be heard. Therefore, the scope of interlocutors is broadened, including not only those who are present in the interaction (or in the resources used in the classroom) and we can get a glimpse of the inner destinataires of our students. Private speech also indicates how students appropriate the discourse of the other (by repeating , trying out, interpreting, establishing relations with personal/social experiences, writing, by the prosody, gestures, confrontations, conflicts). It indicates the active comprehension of the other s word (which always implies in our response in inner discourse); language as activity, work; language as a dialogical, discursive activity. However, all the richness of this mode of language realization can only be understood if we do not isolate or freeze it, but if we conceive it as a fluid event, enmeshed in the discursive dynamics in the classroom, where language is transformed, created, where meanings/senses are produced (and not reproduced).

ASSUNTO(S)

interação interaction dialogismo lingua estrangeira argumentation dialogism teaching-learning argumentação foreign language ensino - aprendizagem

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