Educação e linguagem : aprendizagem das preposições ‘para’ e ‘por’ pelo viés da semântica argumentativa, com vistas ao ensino de Português como Língua de Acolhimento (PLAc)

Abstract

This thesis is linked to the Graduate Program in Education (PPGEdu) at the University of Caxias do Sul (UCS), in the research line "Educational Processes, Language, Technology, and Inclusion". It focuses on the study of the prepositions 'para' and 'por' from a semantic argumentative perspective, considering the discursive context of Portuguese as a Welcoming Language (PLAc), which is one of my areas of expertise and it is the inspiration for this research. Reflecting on language teaching and learning is challenging, even more so when thinking about teaching for non-native speakers who need to learn Portuguese due to being in an emergency situation. In this teaching context, we often focus heavily on certain linguistic categories while neglecting others that also contribute to the construction of meaning, such as prepositions. Among the difficulties faced by students in learning PLAc, one relates to understanding the meaning of prepositions in discourse. Generally, in teaching, prepositions are treated solely as nomenclature and morphological classification, requiring learners, most of the time, to memorize rather than understand the meaning they produce in discourse. The thesis I defend is that prepositions have an internal argumentation (IA) associated with the utterance/discourse. This theoretical study represents a fundamental first step toward considering - in future studies - how teachers can work with these and other prepositions in Portuguese from a semantic-argumentative perspective, helping students to understand the meaning and use of this important discursive mechanism. To reflect on teaching and semantic constitution of discourse, this study is based on the following research problem: how can the description and explanation of the meanings of the prepositions 'para' and 'por', from the perspective of Argumentative Semantics by Marion Carel and Oswald Ducrot, offer support to understand the use and meaning of prepositions, so that Portuguese learners - especially of Portuguese as a Welcoming Language (PLAc) - improve their interaction in Portuguese? To answer this guiding question, the general objective is: to describe and explain the meanings of the prepositions 'para' and 'por', using the theoretical perspective of Argumentative Semantics by Marion Carel and Oswald Ducrot, to analyze how this can contribute to the development of pedagogical strategies that assist Portuguese learners, especially PLAc students, in understanding the meanings of these prepositions in discourse, aiming to improve their interaction in Portuguese. This is a theoretical study, as it aims to describe and explain the meanings of the prepositions 'para' and 'por', using, merely as examples, utterances spoken by my PLAc students. Based on this research, it was possible to verify that prepositions have internal argumentation (IA) associated with discourse. [resumo fornecido pelo autor]