Letramentos na construção civil: um estudo sobre as leituras e as escritas dos técnicos de segurança do trabalho

Abstract

Language is a human construction, employed since the first known generations to make communication among individuals and their people easier. Given its importance, playing a mediating role in a modern society as a means of daily social interactions, it has become a topic of interest for several researchers in the literacy field, observing its uses and the consequences that it causes to its users’ life. Considering that written language is a mediator of human relationships and that it plays a paramount role for social agency, the present work intends to shed light on the literacy practices carried out by Workplace Health and Safety Officers who work in the civil construction industry, aiming to investigate how these practices are done and how they contribute to the preservation of health and life of those who work in such workplace. The study is in the scope of Applied Linguistics, it is qualitative in nature with ethnographic traits (BODGAN; BIKLEN, 1994; ANDRÉ, 1995; CANÇADO, 1994). Theoretically, it is anchored in the conceptions of literacy as a social practice (KLEIMAN, 1995; OLIVEIRA; KLEIMAN, 2008; BARTON; HAMILTON, 1998), as language as a mediator of work activities (NOUROUDINE, 2002; PAZ, 2008), and as agency with positions assumed by individuals by interacting with various texts (BANDURA, 2001; ARCHER, 2000). The analysis points out the importance that literacy practices assume to guide, ensure rights and spaces, register the work done, and most importantly, to provoke changes in attitude such as how the risks that the work presents for those who develop their labor activities in this scope, assuming, thus, an agentive perspective by encouraging changes in attitude of many employees who work in the civil construction industry. Therefore, the work has as a contribution to evidence the Agentivo character of the writing of technicians and the potential of literacy practices of these professionals to modify the relationships between work, welfare and safety in the workplace.