GRAMMAR IN DISPUTE: The Discourse of Change and the Break with Tradition
Pedagogical Discourse, Global Semantics, Portuguese Language Teaching, Discourse of Change.
The teaching of Portuguese in Brazil has historically followed a model focused on normative grammar, aimed at the educated elite. This approach became challenging with the democratization of education and the inclusion of students from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. This context motivated the emergence of what is known as the discourse of change, characterized by a series of statements present in academic-scientific works published in the 1980s. These works aimed to shift the traditional conception of language to one based on the enunciative/discursive nature of language (cf. Pietri, 2004). This view, which understands language as a social and historical phenomenon, was proposed to guide and promote linguistic education that considers the heterogeneous and variable nature of language, thereby offering contextualized grammar teaching. Within this scenario, this ongoing study aims to understand the semantic foundations upon which the discourse of change emerges in works such as O texto na sala de aula (Geraldi, 2011), Por que (não) ensinar gramática na escola (Possenti, 2000), Mas o que é mesmo ‘gramática’? (Franchi, 2006), and A Linguística e o ensino de Língua Portuguesa (Ilari, 1997). These texts were selected for analysis as they are considered exemplary in promoting and disseminating this new discourse on grammar teaching within the academic field. To achieve this, this qualitative and documentary research, grounded in the theoretical-methodological principles of French discourse analysis, employs Maingueneau’s (2009) concept of global semantics, which states that discourses are ruled by semes that limit what can and should be said within a given discursive formation. This study seeks to understand, through the identification and analysis of the semes claimed and rejected by the discourse of change, how this discourse appears in the aforementioned works.