Repositório RCAAP

The present work claims that what studies have taken to be L2 syntax can be attributed to L1 influence at the SM interface, to morpho(phono)logy and phonology and a reanalysis of the phenomena is needed.

In light of the predictions of two competing approaches to adult L2 acquisition – Full Access (FA) (e.g., White 1989, 2003; Schwartz & Sprouse 1996) and Failed Features (FF) (e.g., Hawkins & Chan 1997; Liceras & Díaz, 1999) – the present study examines the acquisition of inflected infinitives by English and Spanish/English bilingual adult learners of L2 Portuguese. Target-like acquisition of inflected infinitives requires the resetting of both a syntactic parameter (the Null Subject Parameter) and a morphological parameter (the Infl-parameter) for these learners. Since FF approaches maintain a post-critical period failure to acquire new L2 features lacking from the L1, target-like acquisition is predicted to not be possible. Conversely, FA approaches, which maintain adult parameter resetting is possible, predict that native-like competence of inflected infinitives is attainable, but not inevitably so. The data we present support FA approaches, demonstrating that advanced adult learners achieve native-like interpretative knowledge of Portuguese inflected infinitives. We also consider the role of L1 transfer and its possible implications, as they differ for both groups.

This study presents an experiment on the L2 acquisition of the Overt Pronoun Constraint (OPC), a universal principle that refers to the fact that null subject languages do not allow for an overt pronoun to be bound by a quantified antecedent (e.g. *Ninguémi acha que elei é estúpido). The objective of the experiment was to test the knowledge of this principle by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and speakers of English and English-Spanish bilinguals, L2 and L3 learners of BP, respectively. The central question of this research is whether native BP speakers are more likely to observe the principle or not, but also whether L2 and L3 learners of BP would behave like native speakers, like speakers of a typical null subject language or according to their native language. Assuming Universal Bilingualism by Roeper (1999) and using an experimental task based on Kanno (1997) and Rothman and Iverson (2007 a-c), it was found that native BP controls did not behave like typical null subject language speakers with respect to the OPC. Moreover, the L2 and L3 learners of BP behaved similarly to the controls, independently of their previously acquired languages.

The purpose of the present paper is to compare the use of hedges among Brazilian speakers of Portuguese and Portuguese learners, who speak Mandarin as L1. A definition for hedges was suggested and a listing of occurrences of this phenomenon in the linguistic system of Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese as Additional Language was presented. Then, a methodology for the compilation of the two oral corpora was presented, by means of a longitudinal study that lasted nine months. The data analysis was based on the new classification of hedges, with the aim of comparing the productions in Brazilian Portuguese and Portuguese as Additional Language. This study is an attempt to analyze hedges utilizing Corpus Linguistics and the aim was to contribute to a methodology for the acquisition process of Portuguese as an Additional Language.

Currently, there has been a large number of studies involving pronunciation and pronunciation teaching. However, the role of explicit instruction has received very little attention in this field. This research study aims to investigate the effects of explicit instruction on the production of the voiceless plosive /p/ in word-initial position in English. We have carried out quantitative analyses involving 12 Brazilian native speakers who have been studying English as a second language. Participants were divided in 2 groups: (a) an Experimental Group, which received contextualized pronunciation classes on aspiration; and (b) a Control Group, which did not receive any kind of instruction. Prior to classes, participants took a production test both in English and in Portuguese, which allowed us to measure their Voice Onset Time (VOT) values in milliseconds (ms). Following the instruction classes, participants took the same test again, so that their progress could be assessed. The tests consisted of a list of words with word-initial /p/ as well as distracters. Our data show that explicit instruction contributed to an increase in the averages of VOT produced by the participants in the Experimental Group. On the other hand, the Control Group did not produce the aspirated /p/ in a target-like manner. Overall, explicit instruction with contextualization has proved to have a positive effect on the acquisition of aspirated /p/ by Brazilian speakers.

Integrated to acts of reference, metadiscourse refers to those reflexive movements made by speakers on their own statements or on others' statements during interaction. Referential metadiscourse occurs in order to signal the construction of social meaning and the way conversation is organized and managed. Two hypotheses guide this article: i) referential acts constitute an important way to give visibility to the relationship between language and cognition; observing these acts, we can understand how interactants contextualize and construct social meaning; ii) the two types of referential metadiscourse – textual and interactional (acc. Jubran, 2002, 2005) – make evident different reflexive actions performed by individuals with aphasia and Alzheimer's disease.

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This article presents an account of A ronda das Americas (Around the Americas) by Jorge Amado. The book is a collection of travel logs written by the author while journeying throughout the Americas in 1937. The analysis focuses on the similarities and differences established by the Bahian novel writer regarding cultural diversity in Brazil mainly between the Southern and Northeastern regions. The objective is to understand the writer’s view of regional in a historic cultural context in Brazil which is marked by the division North/South. In order to reach such objective it is important to consoefer Amado’s participation in the literary field of the 30s, his political affiliation as well as his commitment with revolutionary art in harmony with his time.

Mar Morto, one of the most representative texts by writer Jorge Amado, updates important myths of the Lusitanian tradition, as pointed out by Gilbert Durand, and features a character who is the embodiment of the ideals of a mythical lusitanidade, through his warrior attributes. Guma, Jorge Amado’s most popular sailor, brings in its path a heroic conduct worthy of the imaginary knighthood. Guma is a predestined character, who does not conform to the limits imposed. He carries with him an impossible audacity, which makes him being chosen by the goddess Yemanjá, his faithful protectress. This Galaaz from Bahia, in dialogue with the A Demanda do Santo Graal, will be allocated a heroic place in the imagination of the people of the docks: the mystic savior who will return one day.

The article presents an analysis of the novel Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon by Jorge Amado with a focus on the representation of the body based on the concepts of grotesque and carnivalesque put forward by Mikhail Bakhtin. The images and references to the body are discussed as they are projected in the narrative as well as the cultural critical dimension these images convey. Firstly, an analysis of the grotesque system of images is presented considering its deviant characteristic in relation to the esthetic model of bodies as known in Western tradition. Secondly, in the Amadian text, the representation of the body of the character Gabriela are taken as representative of this carnavalized universe ewhich defies laws and contentions well established in the so called official culture.

This article, based on the novel As velhas, by the Bahian writer Adonias Filho, analyses how each one of the four women, the main characters, revivify, through the exuberant and reckless landscape of the rainforest, the history of the hostile and male world, the Bahian cocoa universe and the history of the territorial conquest of a region. At the same time, these women narrate their pains, sufferings and revenges. By using the memory and the constitution of the identity of the characters, women and men, the purpose of this analysis is to understand how this memoirist narrative is built, through the materialization of the tensions which are modeled in the experiences and in the individual and collective histories of each subject and its culture.

This text pays homage to the Bahian writer Jônatas Conceição da Silva. Utilizing a brief summary of his poetic work and intellectual activities, it seeks to demonstrate the strategies the author used in disseminating aspects of the Afro-Brazilian tradition, not only through his poetry but also through other intellectual endeavors, in which his commitment to disseminating Afro-Brazilian culture and history became evident. A poet who identified as Afro-Brazilian, Jônatas Conceição left a series of poems and stories in which his life history, his memory and Afro-Brazilian memory in a wider sense are presented in language that is both accessible and politically engaged. In this paper, the reader will learn about the life and intellectual production of a poet for whom writing was a way of intervening in literary, cultural and political life.

The concepts of “place” and “no place” (Marc Augé) comprise one the tools to do the reading of two contemporary texts which look into the old town of Salvador, especially Pelourinho and Tabuão. The first – extract from an internetchain known as “Salvador, learning and having fun” – Salvador, para aprender e se diverter – which was on the net right after the carnival of 2011. The second – a tale named “O visitante invisível” – The invisible visitor – by Carlos Ribeiro. Displaying some humor, the text points out the old town fleeing and its withdrawing from everyday life. Thus, a “no-place” is established. Such narrative also builds on remarks through the geography of the old town of Salvador, but the chosen itinerary adopts a quite unique perspective, given that meaningful connections with past life experiences are depicted. There is a subjective temporality. Thus, the “place” is set.

Comparative study between Cyro Martins’ novel Um menino vai para o colégio and the namesake’s short film by Liliana Sulzbach and Marcello Lima, focusing on how each one approaches the end of the character’s childhood, while it signalizes the start of a new stage of Carlos’ life. Reflecting about the representation of this traditional break between boy and man is the theme of this essay, which also tries to think about the regional expression of childhood.

The article presents the preliminary results of the research project entitled “The new-new Bahian tred seen from afar”. The aim of the project is to learn how gauchos perceive films produced in Bahia between 2001 and 2011. The investigation is based on a comparison between Bahian literary production of the period, mainly featured movies, with the same time of movies exibit in cinemas in Porto Alegre. It is an attempt to understand how a set of films was interpreted by newspaper cinema critics, including not mentioning them, in Porto Alegre at the time the films were being exhibited in local theaters. The article points at central issues regarding Brazilian cinema today such as the important dimensions of the regionalization and cinema exhibition in Brazil.

Machado de Assis (Algumas notas sobre o “humour”), written by the journalist, essayist and short-story author Alcides Maya (1877-1984), and published in Rio de Janeiro in 1912, is a remarkable debut book, published after Machado de Assis’ death. In this book, Maya takes issue with the analysis carried out by essayist and historian Silvio Romero, in his 1897 book Machado de Assis, concerning the use of humor, as well as examines Machado’s place in the history of Brazilian literature. Near its 100th anniversary, Maya’s book remains an important and updated reference for Machado’s studies.

This article discusses the relations between politics and literature in the 20th Century in Bahia. It highlights the trajectory of “men of letters” and the importance of the newspaper editorial rooms as places for intellectual and literary formation. It focuses on Bahian writers works that used political issues as main themes in their Romanesque narratives in the second half of the 20th Century. In Bahia, literary men played important roles in party politics. Writing practices undertook a political role by mediating the conducts of people who were involved in debates on collective or individual interest issues and emphasizing the tensions and its developments. In this article, history, literature and politics are associated to the concepts of individual and collective memory, imaginary and power.

Analysis of the conference by Clodomir Vianna Moog, to be presented in the book under the title An interpretation of Brazilian literature, which presents an interpretive system of cultural nuclei, whose composition forms the heterogeneous complex of Brazilian literature, featuring a cultural archipelago which consists of seven autonomous and differentiated islands.

According with the Portuguese imaginary, Brazil as a country and the Brazilian as it has been glossed in Portuguese culture since Pero Vaz de Caminha`s letter. Thus, what does it mean to postulate the existence of a Brazilian language, which is also ring-fenced in relation to the matrix language that is Portuguese, a language of colonial diffusion and deployment. In order to achieve the purpose of this paper, As Pupilas do Senhor Reitor (1867) by Júlio Dinis e O Crime do Padre Amaro by Eça de Queirós will be taken as a starting point, both are testimonies collected in Portuguese fiction of the nineteenth century.

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