In L’Ovide moralisé, the Christianised medieval adaptation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the theme of metamorphosis provides a privileged observatory for probing the complex links between man and the plant world in the 14th century. Numerous stories highlight the way in which the medieval ontological system, broadly defined as analogist, can be permeated by animistic tensions. To shed light on this principle of hybridisation, this article will draw on Philippe Descola’s categories. Focusing on the author’s writing strategies and their effect(s), it will examine the principles of continuity and discontinuity between interiority and physicality. At the same time, by comparing the source text and its rewriting, we will be looking at possible changes in the way plants are perceived between Antiquity and the end of the Middle Ages.
Neste trabalho são apresentados resultados de pesquisa com que se objetiva conhecer os efeitos produzidos pelas práticas pedagógicas e científicas desenvolvidas em contexto acadêmico, sobre as estratégias linguístico-discursivas mobilizáveis pelo professor em formação. O material de análise é resultante de atividade de produção textual realizada em uma disciplina de Pós-Graduação, em que foi proposta a elaboração de um press release, gênero voltado à apresentação de novidades a um público de não especialistas, para a divulgação, não de conhecimentos recentemente produzidos, mas de uma obra de longeva e ampla circulação no meio acadêmico. Foram analisados, com base em elementos de análise do discurso acerca da noção de gêneros textuais/discursivos, os textos produzidos pelos participantes que fossem professores de língua portuguesa na educação básica. A análise evidenciou que os textos produzidos se organizam intergenericamente como compósitos de elementos provenientes de gêneros acadêmico-científicos diversos, como resumos, resenhas, anúncios, textos de divulgação científica etc. Os resultados mostram que, quando se subvertem as referências de tempo e espaço para a produção do gênero a se conhecer, os modos como normalmente são agenciados os gêneros já conhecidos se alteram, produzindo efeitos de estranhamento que podem ser formativos na medida em que desestabilizam aspectos já normalizados.
Elizabeth J. Erling, Anouschka Foltz, Felicitas Siwik
et al.
This article reports on an interview study with six secondary school LX English teachers working in a part of Austria where there is an above-average number of residents–and thus also students–who are multilingual and come from migration backgrounds. It attempts to extend research on deficit perspectives of multilingual learners from migration backgrounds to the area of LX English learning and to provide insights into a language learning context that is underrepresented in international applied linguistics research, which has tended to focus on elite language learning. The article explores teachers’ perceptions of teaching English in this context. We hypothesized that teachers would hold negative beliefs about their students’ multilingual backgrounds and practices. The typological analysis of teachers’ interview data revealed that teachers did hold some dominant deficit perspectives about their students’ multilingualism and language learning; however, it also suggests that teachers are taking on the rudiments of a translanguaging stance that values multilingual practice. The article thus closes by considering how possibility perspectives can be harnessed and extended to foster students’ multilingual and multicultural development, with particular regard to LX English language learning.
Increasing evidence suggests that bilingualism does not, in itself, result in a particular pattern of response, revealing instead a complex and multidimensional construct that is shaped by evolutionary and ecological sources of variability. Despite growing recognition of the need for a richer characterization of bilingual speakers and of the different contexts of language use, we understand relatively little about the boundary conditions of putative “bilingualism” effects. Here, we review recent findings that demonstrate how variability in the language experiences of bilingual speakers, and also in the ability of bilingual speakers to adapt to the distinct demands of different interactional contexts, impact interactions between language use, language processing, and cognitive control processes generally. Given these findings, our position is that systematic variation in bilingual language experience gives rise to a variety of phenotypes that have different patterns of associations across language processing and cognitive outcomes. The goal of this paper is thus to illustrate how focusing on systematic variation through the identification of bilingual phenotypes can provide crucial insights into a variety of performance patterns, in a manner that has implications for previous and future research.
This paper provides a critical review of the state of the art in code-switching research being conducted in linguistics. Three issues of theoretical and practical importance are explored: (a) code-switching vs. borrowing; (b) grammaticality; and (c) variability vs. uniformity, and I take a position on all three issues. Regarding switching vs. borrowing, I argue that not all lone other-language items are borrowings once more subtle measures of integration are used. I defend the use of empirical data to compare competing theoretical frameworks of grammaticality, and I exemplify quantitative research on variability in code-switching, showing that it also reveals uniformity and the possible influence of community norms. I conclude that more research is needed on a range of bilingual communities in order to determine the relative contribution of individual factors, processing and community norms to the variability and uniformity of code-switching.
The current study aimed at investigating the performance of bilingual children with English as an additional language (EAL) on language and literacy measures compared to monolinguals across the first four years of primary school in the U.K. Moreover, it addressed whether bilinguals and monolinguals’ performance on reading comprehension was consistent with the Simple View of Reading. An additional area of interest was to examine the extent to which use of and exposure to both heritage and majority language affected the development of the children’s reading comprehension in both of their spoken languages. A total of forty bilingual and forty monolingual children were assessed in oral language skills and decoding in Year 1 and Year 3 in primary school. After one school year, they were assessed in oral language skills, decoding, and reading comprehension in Year 2 and Year 4. The results showed that the bilinguals performed better than the monolinguals in decoding in all years, suggesting that exposure to a first language with transparent orthography (Greek) may benefit the development of word reading skills. However, the bilinguals scored lower in oral language skills and reading comprehension than their monolingual peers. This finding underlined the significant role of oral language skills in the development of bilinguals’ reading comprehension. Both oral language skills and decoding contributed to reading comprehension in bilinguals but the effects of oral language skills on reading comprehension were stronger than the effects of decoding. Finally, we found that language use of the minority language outside the home could significantly predict reading comprehension in the minority language, underlining the importance of language exposure through complementary schools and other activities outside the home to the maintenance and development of the heritage language.
Russian and Turkish are the most frequently spoken and intensively investigated heritage languages in Germany, but contrastive research on their development in early childhood is still missing. This longitudinal study compares the trajectories of expressive lexicon development in Russian (n = 70) and Turkish (n = 79) heritage speakers and identifies predictors for their lexicon size at preschool age. Heritage lexicon size was tested with two comparable tests assessing the expressive lexicon at four test points between the mean ages of 3.3 (range: 25–49 months) and 5.6 (range: 54–78 months) years. The influence of language-related factors, such as input quantity, parents’ heritage language proficiency and age of onset (AoO) of German, and other potential predictors, i.e., intelligence and socio-economic status, is evaluated. Results show that the Turkish group’s abilities grow slower but are similar at the last test point. Common predictors for lexicon size are input quantity from siblings and AoO. Group-specific influences are parental input quantity in the Russian group and siblings’ proficiency in the Turkish group. Our findings emphasize the interplay of input quantity and society language AoO for heritage lexicon development. The relevance of our results for the usage-based theory of language acquisition is discussed.
Nicolas de Oliveira Santos, Gabriel Nascimento, Maria D'Ajuda Alomba Ribeiro
Este artigo tem por finalidade analisar e discutir aspectos acerca dos nexos entre Internacionalização, Política Linguística, ensino de línguas e o racismo epistêmico. Nesta perspectiva, analisaremos os parâmetros relativos às propostas do Future-se (BRASIL, 2020a), para refletir de que forma o impacto da medida ao ensino de línguas reforça o racismo epistêmico na Internacionalização do Ensino Superior, observando a língua em primeiro lugar, além de aspectos como migração e ideia de qualidade do ensino superior público brasileiro. O foco de análise aqui delineado visa observar a colonialidade por trás da língua, e como esta atua no domínio colonial, em sua naturalização homogeneizante (NASCIMENTO, 2020), e como disto decorre certa idealização das línguas e das identidades por ela moldadas. Com isso, pretendemos provocar o debate epistêmico no próprio seio de campos como políticas linguísticas, ensino-aprendizagem de línguas, estudos de tradução, formação de professores, dentre outros.
I. Tsimpli, Margreet Vogelzang, Anusha Balasubramanian
et al.
Multilingualism and linguistic diversity are the norm in India. Although studies have shown a relation between bilingualism and cognitive gains, linguistic diversity has so far been ignored as a potential factor affecting cognitive skills. This study aims to fill this gap by examining how cognitive skills—as measured by the n-back and Raven’s Colored Progressive Matrices tasks—are affected by multilingualism and/or sociolinguistic diversity in a large cohort of socioeconomically disadvantaged primary school children in two urban sites of India: Delhi and Hyderabad. We present a questionnaire estimating sociolinguistic diversity and show that this measure assesses a distinct construct, as compared to a child’s multilingualism. Children were classified as growing up monolingually or bilingually, depending on whether they grew up with one or more languages in the home. Regarding cognitive performance, bilinguals were found to outperform monolinguals on the n-back task, as well as on the Raven’s task. In addition, a socially and linguistically diverse environment seems to enhance cognitive performance for children who are not multilingual themselves. Finally, several contextual factors such as city were found to influence cognitive performance. Overall, this shows that cognitive tasks are subject to contextual effects and that bilingualism and linguistic diversity can enhance cognitive performance of children in disadvantaged contexts.
Este relato de experiência tem como objetivo apresentar um trabalho desenvolvido no Estágio Curricular Supervisionado de Língua Portuguesa e Literaturas, no curso de Letras Português/Inglês, de uma Universidade Pública no Norte do Paraná. Considerando as discussões sobre as modalidades de Estágio Supervisionado e a relevância de projetos nessa etapa (PIMENTA; LIMA, 2018), foi desenvolvido um projeto de intervenção no estágio visando a realização de oficinas em escolas públicas. As bases teórico-metodológicas que fundamentaram o trabalho foram os pressupostos da pedagogia de projetos de letramento (KLEIMAN, 2000; OLIVEIRA, 2008; SOUZA; OLIVEIRA, 2017) e de sequência didática de gêneros (DOLZ; NOVERRAZ; SCHNEUWLY, 2004, BARROS, 2012; GUIMARÃES; KERSCH, 2015; BARROS; STORTO, 2017; STRIQUER; OLIVEIRA, 2017; BARROS; STRIQUER; STORTO, 2018). Com base nos resultados desta experiência, foi possível verificar a contribuição do projeto de intervenção no estágio tanto para formação docente dos acadêmicos de Letras quanto para as escolas, campo social de estágio.