Da reprodução à produção textual: a escrita na sala de aula

Abstract

From the analysis of texts written by ninth grade students in the Brazilian basic cycle at the public school, the trend of speech reproduction based on the contemporary ritual of “copy and paste” has been noted. Therefore, the authors of this paper devised the need to teach students to use the linguistics of discourse analysis (according to Brazilian grammar rules), specifically: direct speech, indirect speech, mixed quotations and what in Brazilian grammar is referred to as modalization of secondary speech (the act of employing direct speech without use of quotation marks, by adding “according to” and other such introductory resources before undertaking a verbatim approach to original speech reproduction). Both the “starting point” and “finish line” of this study are the journalistic discourse. The answers to the following questions are the main aim of this paper: in which ways do the students, when managing reported speech, mobilize other syntactic forms of discourse analysis when writing journalistic text? Which reflexive activities pertaining to language can contribute to the development of student’s writing capabilities? Our objective, here, is developing the writing abilities of students by intervening in their day to day studies and having them reflect on what was said by other sources. As specific objectives, we have listed: a) mapping the most recurring linguistic forms that point out how students relate to third party speeches, b) analyzing the effects such syntactic forms have over the student’s writing and its overall sense, c) offering learning activities where the third party speech can surpass the “copy/ paste” ritual, especially in written form, d) compile the data generated with a special emphasis to “how” these activities impacted the writers and their writing. Our hypothesis is that the discourse analysis, especially when pertaining to third party speech, is both teachable and learnable. Our methodology encompasses the study of language creating activities, as proposed by Franchi (1987, 1992a) and, therefore, we have organized learning activities where the process of writing is also a process of reflection. The overall construction of the corpus occurs in three distinctive situations of written production, to follow: Over the first stage, the linguistic activity, all writing problems are identified. The objective of this stage is describing and analyzing the presence or absence of quotations. From this initial moment diagnosis activities can be developed and employed to exercise this “linguistic knowledge” (reflective activities). After this more purposeful phase, we can check if the student already recognizes and employs the reported speech structures (metalinguistic activities). As a base theory we’ll consider the dialogic nature of language postulated by Bakhtin/Volochínov (2014), under which perspective reading, writing and linguistic analysis are interactive activities between subjects producing meaning (GERALDI, 2009, 2010, 2013) and we’ll consider, as well, enunciation, from the concept of enunciative heterogeneity especially as it regards to linguistic structures materialized in the discourse as divulged by Authier-Revuz (1990, 2004) and Maingueneau (2001). Results show that teaching the syntax of the reported speech and discourse analysis can be constituted as a successful practice of teaching-learning of writing in basic education.