Crenças e metáforas de estudantes do campus Catu-IF Baiano: um diálogo entre a sociolinguística e a linguística cognitiva

Abstract

What leads a native speaker of a language to vehemently claim not to know it at the end of a class, almost begging the teacher for help to unravel the mysteries of a language that he has been exposed to since before he realized himself as a speaker of a difficult and vast linguistic system? Often, the Portuguese language teacher meets students, whether from Basic or Higher Education, who do not see themselves as competent users of their mother tongue. In this reality, the present research is inserted, seeking - by observing the behavior of the subjects belonging to the communities of students of the technical courses in Agriculture and Chemistry Integrated to the High School of the IF Baiano - Campus Catu - to perceive their beliefs, so that, once identified, should be possible to develop teaching strategies closer to the reality and expectations of these social beings. The research, in search of a broader view of the linguistic beliefs from the participants, finds theoretical ballast in the dialogue between Labovian Sociolinguistics, more precisely in studies on social evaluation, teaching, and third wave – Morales (1993), Gómez Molina (1996), Souza (1996), Moreno Fernandez (1998), Aguilera (2008) and Eckert (2012 and 2018); Cognitive Linguistics – Conceptual Metaphor Theory by Lakoff and Johnson (1890 and 1999); Social Psychology – Lambert and Lambert (1972), Steiner and Fishbein (1966); and Cognitive Social Psychology – Günther (2006, 2022). Under ethnographic guidance, the research corpus was collected through the application of belief tests and interview scripts in groups. Data collection took place between 2016 and 2019, involving 197 participants (boys and girls; freshmen and seniors). The observation of the data from the fieldwork allowed to perceive some beliefs that indicated differences between the two communities of practices studied, as well as other beliefs that revealed approach points between the communities, especially those linked to linguistic myths reinforced by pedagogical practices attached to a prescriptive view of grammar. The qualitative/quantitative analysis proved to be of significant importance, since the observation of the metaphors present in the students' speeches refuted and/or clarified beliefs identified in the quantitative data, revealing the fruitful dialogue intentended between the social and the cognitive.