Descrição do uso das conjunções but e however em redações acadêmicas em língua inglesa de nível B1 com base em corpus
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Data
2018-03-28
Autores
Santos, Mayra Aparecida dos
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Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp)
Resumo
A presente pesquisa tem como objetivo principal descrever o uso das conjunções but e however em redações acadêmicas escritas por alunos universitários brasileiros em língua inglesa. Esperamos, a partir dessa observação, contribuir com as discussões sobre prática de ensino de Inglês com Fins Acadêmicos - IFA, uma vez que a proficiência insuficiente no idioma foi um dos problemas identificados em programas de mobilidade internacional. Tendo em vista a habilidade de produção escrita e utilizando a abordagem teórico-metodológica da Linguística de Corpus, elaboramos um corpus de aprendiz para análise - CA - utilizando 264 redações acadêmicas extraídas do Corpus Inglês para Fins Acadêmicos – CorIFA (DUTRA; QUEIROZ; ALVES, 2017). Esses textos foram escritos por alunos brasileiros universitários com proficiência B1 em língua inglesa. Também elaboramos um corpus de referência - CR - nos valendo das mesmas características do CA, com o objetivo de, após analisarmos os excertos referentes ao CR, realizarmos uma comparação entre a escrita de dois públicos não-nativos de língua inglesa. Para a elaboração do CR extraímos 31 redações acadêmicas escritas em língua inglesa por alunos não-nativos do Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers - MICUSP. Nossa fundamentação teórica conta como base os descritores de competência de produção escrita do Quadro Europeu Comum de Referência para Línguas - QECR (2001) para descrever o uso de conjunções em redações acadêmicas de alunos no nível B1 de proficiência de língua inglesa. Para descrever as conjunções but e however, utilizamos as gramáticas com base em corpus Longman de Biber et al (1999) e Cambridge (CARTER; MCCARTHY, 2006), gramáticas de ensino de língua inglesa Practical English Usage (SWAN, 2005), The Grammar Book (CELCE-MURCIA; LARSEN FREEMAN, 1999), a Gramática da Língua Inglesa de Watkins e Porter (2006) e os dicionários online de Cambridge e Wordreference. Por meio desse material, descrevemos a razão pela qual but e however são elementos gramaticais expressivos e relevantes para a escrita de redações acadêmicas em língua inglesa. A extração dos dados foi realizada por meio da ferramenta computacional AntConc (ANTHONY, 2011), que gera linhas de concordância e as agrupa de acordo com o elemento do texto que estamos buscando. Após a extração e análise dos dados de ambos os corpora, comparamos o uso das conjunções em início de orações para descrever as semelhanças ou diferenças de escrita entre os dois grupos de estudantes não-nativos. Dados encontrados em nosso corpus de análise CorIFA demonstraram que uma parcela dos alunos universitários brasileiros utiliza as conjunções de forma equivocada, segundo apontam as gramáticas apresentadas em nossa fundamentação teórica. Ainda, comparados aos dados extraídos de nosso corpus de referência, esses números mostram que os alunos brasileiros possuem condições de escrita aquém dos alunos que escreveram os textos extraídos do corpus MICUSP, apontando para a necessidade de maior aprofundamento de estudo de Inglês com Fins Acadêmicos nas universidades brasileiras.
The objective of this present research is to describe the use of the conjunctions, “but” and “however”, in academic essays written in English by Brazilian university students. From this observation, we expect to contribute to the discussions on the practice of teaching English for Academic Purposes - EAP, once insufficient language proficiency was one of the problems identified in international mobility programs. In view of a written production skill and based on theoretical backgrounds of Corpus Linguistics, we have developed a corpus of English learner for analysis - CA – formed by 264 academic essays extracted from the Corpus Inglês para Fins Acadêmicos – CorIFA (DUTRA; QUEIROZ; ALVES, 2017). These texts were written by Brazilian university students with B1 proficiency in English. We also built a corpus of reference - CR - using the same characteristics of the CA, and, after analyzing the excerpts referring to the CR, we compared the writing of these two groups of non-native English-speaking learners. For the drafting of the CR we extracted 31 academic essays written in English by non-native students from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers - MICUSP. Our theoretical basis relies on the written production ability descriptors of the Common Reference Framework for Languages (2001) to describe the use of conjunctions in academic writing B1 proficiency level. In order to describe the conjunctions “but” and “however”, we use the corpus based grammars Longman by Biber et al (1999) and Cambridge (CARTER; MCCARTHY, 2006), English-language grammars Practical English Usage (SWAN, 2005), The Grammar Book (CELCE-MURCIA; LARSEN FREEMAN, 1999), The English Grammar by Watkins and Porter (2006) and the Cambridge and Wordreference online dictionaries. Through this material, we describe the reason why we consider “but” and “however” expressive grammatical elements and believe in the importance of the proper use of these conjunctions in academic essays. Data extraction was performed using the software AntConc (ANTHONY, 2001), which generates lines according to the word we are looking for. After extracting and analyzing data from both corpora, we compared the use of conjunctions in the beginning of the sentences in order to describe the similarities or differences in writing between the two non-native students. Data found in our analysis from CorIFA have demonstrated that a portion of Brazilian university students uses conjunctions in a wrong way, according to the grammars presented in our theoretical basis. Also, compared to the data extracted from our CR, numbers show that Brazilian students have written conditions below the students who wrote the texts extracted from the MICUSP corpus, pointing to the need for a more in-depth study of English for Academic Purposes in Brazilian universities.
The objective of this present research is to describe the use of the conjunctions, “but” and “however”, in academic essays written in English by Brazilian university students. From this observation, we expect to contribute to the discussions on the practice of teaching English for Academic Purposes - EAP, once insufficient language proficiency was one of the problems identified in international mobility programs. In view of a written production skill and based on theoretical backgrounds of Corpus Linguistics, we have developed a corpus of English learner for analysis - CA – formed by 264 academic essays extracted from the Corpus Inglês para Fins Acadêmicos – CorIFA (DUTRA; QUEIROZ; ALVES, 2017). These texts were written by Brazilian university students with B1 proficiency in English. We also built a corpus of reference - CR - using the same characteristics of the CA, and, after analyzing the excerpts referring to the CR, we compared the writing of these two groups of non-native English-speaking learners. For the drafting of the CR we extracted 31 academic essays written in English by non-native students from the Michigan Corpus of Upper-Level Student Papers - MICUSP. Our theoretical basis relies on the written production ability descriptors of the Common Reference Framework for Languages (2001) to describe the use of conjunctions in academic writing B1 proficiency level. In order to describe the conjunctions “but” and “however”, we use the corpus based grammars Longman by Biber et al (1999) and Cambridge (CARTER; MCCARTHY, 2006), English-language grammars Practical English Usage (SWAN, 2005), The Grammar Book (CELCE-MURCIA; LARSEN FREEMAN, 1999), The English Grammar by Watkins and Porter (2006) and the Cambridge and Wordreference online dictionaries. Through this material, we describe the reason why we consider “but” and “however” expressive grammatical elements and believe in the importance of the proper use of these conjunctions in academic essays. Data extraction was performed using the software AntConc (ANTHONY, 2001), which generates lines according to the word we are looking for. After extracting and analyzing data from both corpora, we compared the use of conjunctions in the beginning of the sentences in order to describe the similarities or differences in writing between the two non-native students. Data found in our analysis from CorIFA have demonstrated that a portion of Brazilian university students uses conjunctions in a wrong way, according to the grammars presented in our theoretical basis. Also, compared to the data extracted from our CR, numbers show that Brazilian students have written conditions below the students who wrote the texts extracted from the MICUSP corpus, pointing to the need for a more in-depth study of English for Academic Purposes in Brazilian universities.
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Palavras-chave
Mobilidade internacional, Linguística de Corpus, Língua inglesa, Inglês com fins acadêmicos, Conjunções but e however, International mobility, Corpus linguistics, English language, English for academic purposes, Conjunctions but and however