A utilização de software de mineração de texto por surdos universitários : produção textual em língua portuguesa

Abstract

This research focuses on the higher education of deaf people, with the objective of studying the inherent challenges to the text production of abstracts in a second language, Brazilian Portuguese Language (PL), in the written form. The contribution of the software Sobek was investigated in this process consisted of analyzing in which manner the use of a digital tool for text mining can contribute to the production of abstracts in Brazilian Portuguese Language written by undergraduate deaf students. Studies were considered referring to deafness, education of deaf people, Brazilian Sign Language and Brazilian Portuguese Language as Second Language, abstract production, digital technologies, and the use of the text miner Sobek. This is empirical research, of qualitative nature, of exploratory nature employing different data construction instruments: semi-structured interviews, intervention workshops using the tool Sobek and questionnaires. The intervention workshop generated the text productions (abstracts) of undergraduate deaf students, the manual list of core ideas (topics and mind map) and graphs generated on Sobek, composing the sources of evidence of this study. The research received the contribution of four undergraduate deaf students, two of them participated in the whole process. To the analysis, due to the specifications of this research, it was necessary to create a new analysis method, which was organized with the purpose of presenting the characterization of each participant considering the interviews, the description of the intervention workshop, the analysis of the production (Mining: mind map, graph and abstracts; main core ideas, and compositional aspects) and the perspective of the participants in relation to the workshop and the use of the digital tool Sobek. As a result, we conclude that the presentation of nodes in image (graph) had a positive impact, since it valued the visual channel which facilitates access to information for deaf people. We verified that the use of the text mining tool Sobek contributes and can aid undergraduate deaf students to identify core ideas of a text to the production of abstracts. However, we noticed that the writing of the participants occurred in a restricted manner and not achieving the compositional aspects of an adequate abstract, as they showed some difficulties to understand the academic texts, be it by the semantic complexity level or by the learning gaps of the Second Language. It is noticeable the use of different strategies used by the deaf students in trying to minimize the problems found. From the results, we suggest the implementation of continuous education policies for faculty members, adaptation to the syllabus and to the institutions with deaf students. As pointed out by the participants and with the experience of the workshop, we noticed that professors with specific training and/or fluency in LIBRAS contributed to a bilingual education of quality. We point out to the necessity of promoting workshops and courses specific to the development of the essential skills of reading comprehension and written production in a second language to the deaf students as well as to the faculty members. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]