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Analysis of the palatalization of dental stops in a dialect of Brazilian Portuguese in the OT (Optimality Theory, by PRINCE and SMOLENSKY, 1993/2004) framework. Implicational generalizations are used to construct a factorial typology with t-order (ANTTILA e ANDRUS, 2006) and five patterns of palatalization. The palatalization in Antônio Prado (Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil) follows two of these patterns. Palatalized candidates are selected by a set of markedness constraints related to the contexts of palatalization considered in the implicational generalizations. Two stochastic rankings (BOERSMA e HAYES, 1999) of these and faithfulness constraints explain the variation in the community under study.

This paper discusses some issues related to phonological representations and also issues related to spoken and written language. It begins by discussing the notion of phoneme in phonology. This is followed by a discussion of the relationship between oral and spoken language, observing that speech interferes in writing and writing interferes in speech in a symbiotic relationship. Results from Greco (2009) are presented offering evidence from Brazilian Portuguese to the relationship between writing and speech. It is suggested that to express such a relationship between writing and speech it is necessary to suggest multiple representations for speech. Such representations are managed by social, structural and pragmatic aspects. Discreet units, such as the phoneme play an important descriptive role, but they do not express linguistic knowledge. Finally, some pathways for future research are indicated.

In this paper, we discuss the formalization of markedness constraints in Optimality Theory (OT), with an emphasis on the formalization of manner-specific constraints, proposed by De Lacy (2002, 2006). In order to achieve this goal, we focus on the consonantal gaps found in the inventories of three distinct systems: Manchu, Portuguese and Fe?fe? bamileke. As their formalization allows for the association between the harmonic scales of place and manner of articulation with voicing, manner-specific constraints have not only proved an adequate solution in the analysis of phonological gaps, but they also constitute a robust constraint formalization schema in OT.

The present work aims at to analyze the Carlos de Oliveira’s poetry, neo-realist portuguese writer, standing out, over all, the presence of the reality and its conscience of the poetical accomplishment as artsian work. As neo-realist poet, first a reflection on the historical period, its characteristics and implications is presented. To follow, a presentation of poetical of Carlos de Oliveira is made, a poet and novelist that has left of the reality to compose its workmanships. Through the analysis of some poems of Poetical Work, an anthology chosen and rewritten by himself, it can be perceived clearly how reality and the conscience of poetical working appears and has relevance in its workmanship.

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Hypertext may represent a brave new future for textuality. On the other hand hypertext appears to be limited by its information processing origins. This limitation makes questionable some common postmodern claims about hypertext. In order to seize the cultural high ground its proponents often caricature previous practices of print literature, while the processes of reading are discounted and the mechanism of hypertext is promoted over its content. Hypertext fictions tend to disable the constructive and anticipatory processes of literary readers and reduce narrative to information. Confusions over what hypertext is good for suggest that its moment may already have passed.

The emphasis on linear sequences of beginning, middle and end in print narratives motivates the reader to recover, in his reading practice, a single, coherent and totalizing narrative governed by relations of cause and effect, thus stressing continuities and ignoring or minimizing the significance of discontinuities. In hypertextual narratives, on the other hand, alternative and sometimes conflicting narrative sequences are privileged. Experiments conducted with students (requiring student groups to compose a narrative from a short story fragmented in forty random pieces, without being allowed to read the original story; assigning them the task of comparing Borges’s “The Garden of forking paths” with Stuart Moulthrop’s electronic translation of the same story) suggest that hypertextual narratives tend to open the way to the reading practice of an “outside oriented” reader, predisposed to develop new reading habits, as opposed to the “inside oriented” reader who tends to remain dependent on reading practices defined by the constraints of print narratives.

Digital technologies question the way of thinking the traditional book and originate new spaces of writing and reading, and new types of text. The theory of hypertext has been conceptualising these changes. We will try to demonstrate that this has different matrices, via an analysis of the work of Theodor H. Nelson and Douglas Engelbart and, based on these, of the opposition of “association” and “connection” and of hypertext as an authorial and literary tool and hypertext as a system of information retrieval, with, further, a reflection upon the situation of standalone hypertextual systems confronted by the emergence of the World Wide Web. Lastly, Luciano Floridi’s concept of infosphere – understood as a semantic space constituted by the totality of documents, agents and their operations – allows us to characterise a new ecology where homo informaticus belongs is an amphibian species, living simultaneously in the biosphere and the infosphere, implying the development of new reading skills through hybrid and multimodal semiotic fields.

The growing hegemony of the mode of ditigal production of literary texts to be made available in the internet calls for critical discussion on the possible changes that take place when literary texts are translated in hypertextual format. This essay is devoted to a critical study of the problem in the context of the double meaning of technology as, on the one hand, a tool for the production of objects and, on the other, as an environment in which not only objects but also subjectivities are molded and changed in terms of habits and behavior. If the concept of technology as an environment capable of redefining subjectivities is taken seriously, then it is possible that literature texts translated or produced in hypertextual format will be affect by profound changes when compared to literary production in print.

Initially, this text concerns the nexus between literature and hypertext as processes of reading and writing in the works of Italo Calvino. According to Pierre Levy, hypertext can be understood as a metaphor for the production of meaning. Following Levy, this paper applies hypertext as a conceptual and methodological operator to Calvino’s work. Afterwards, we analyse his participation in the OULIPO, in addition to the relationship between hypertext and combinatorics.

This work is about the use of internet in literature teaching, in high school or in the college. For this, we present the report of two experiences done with blogs in three groups of Letters students at the Universidade Estadual de Maringá, in the “Brazilian Literature: Poetry” and “Brazilian Literature Special Topics” courses. After the report of these experiences, pointing the assessment criteria, the methology and the results, we started to consider the use of chats in the literary creation on-line workshops. The results of the educational experience with the blogs are very satisfactory, because – in general – its use is shown as a very positive strategy to make students write more and write different types of texts, be interactive with the contents, with the other students and with the teacher, leaving the passive behavior in the teacher-student relationship to begin to experience knowledge as something dynamic, observing writing as a process. To conclude, we present tips of sites and cultural and literary magazines on-line that can be useful for both students and literature teachers.

In view of the possibility of mobilizing students for the productive use of Internet, we’re developing a methodology in which the understanding of intertextual relations and the concept of hipertext are presented as a wake for new conceptual and interpretive forms, based on constructionist theories and the reading strategies of “parenting and progeny”, we defend the idea that understanding can be more effectivesinse the establishment of connections with their own universe references.

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A presente edição de Letras de Hoje, intitulada Linguagem: Linguística, Teoria da Literatura e interfaces, comemora 10 anos de existência do Centro de Referência para o Desenvolvimento da Linguagem – CELIN, cujo início das atividades tive a oportunidade de apoiar como diretora da Faculdade de Letras. Atualmente, como pró-reitora de graduação, tenho acompanhado o trabalho realizado no CELIN, estimulando as iniciativas que vi nascer e as que foram criadas ao longo de todos esses anos, tais como atividades de pesquisa em projetos envolvendo ações extensionistas que levam a literatura infanto-juvenil a escolas carentes da comunidade e à internação pediátrica do Sistema Único de Saúde do Hospital São Lucas. Para manter tais projetos conto com o incansável apoio da coordenadora do CELIN, professora Vera Wannmacher Pereira e da professora Maria Tereza Amodeo. O Centro, atualmente, está organizado em três núcleos – Cognição, Linguagem e Interfaces; Literatura e Interfaces; Tecnologias para Aprendizagem de Língua e Literatura. Constitui-se num espaço para desenvolvimento de projetos na área da linguagem, por meio de realização de ações integradas de pesquisa/ensino/extensão, pelo estabelecimento de vínculos entre graduação/pósgraduação e pela promoção de interfaces entre estudos linguísticos e literários entre si e com outras áreas do conhecimento, com especial relevo a Psicologia, História, Computação e Educação. Os projetos desenvolvidos no CELIN têm recebido apoio de vários órgãos de fomento à pesquisa, por meio de bolsas e recursos para equipamentos e materiais, tais como: FA PERGS , CN Pq e a própria PUCRS, por meio das bolsas BPA.

The article aims to contribute to the studies on teaching reading, through a new paradigm that associates Linguistics and Theory of Literature in the perspective of education by means of virtual learning objects. The reader, with the contribution of Linguistics, can realize the resources used by the author of the text, extending the possibilities of inference, reflection, association and filling the gaps of literary text. So the one who reads does it in relation to himself and in relation to he world around him, driven by the sensitive approach of reality built by the linguistic work of the writer.

The main aim of this text is to call the attention of those who deal with the child that he/she must be seen as a whole and exposed to the act of reading from an early age. To become a reader, the child needs to master the mechanism which allows him/her to know and recognize letters and words, as well as phonological processing. However, this more scientifically-based academic approach is not sufficient if we wish to emphasize not only decoding but also reading comprehension. In my opinion, reading is mainly about comprehension. However, the decoding stage should not be neglected and must become automatic as soon as possible in order to leave the child’s memory free to grasp the sense of what he/she is reading without the interference of lengthy decoding. Taking into account the benefits of an emergent literacy, the child has then to be familiar with reading through academic and play-based educational programmes. That said, it is not simply the intellectual side of the child that should be developed, but the whole child which includes other cognitive skills as well as the emotional and social benefits from symbolic and socio-dramatic play. As for the different types of reading practices, indirect reading is advocated here because of its potential for multi-cognitive language development and future reading success.

Although Darwin insisted that human intelligence could be fully explained by the theory of evolution, the codiscoverer of natural selection, Alfred Russel Wallace, claimed that abstract intelligence was of no use to ancestral humans and could only be explained by intelligent design.Wallace’s apparent paradox can be dissolved with two hypotheses about human cognition.One is that intelligence is an adaptation to a knowledge-using, socially interdependent lifestyle, the “cognitive niche”. This embraces the ability to overcome the evolutionary fixed defenses of plants and animals by applications of reasoning, including weapons, traps, coordinated driving of game, and detoxification of plants. Such reasoning exploits intuitive theories about different aspects of the world, such as objects, forces, paths, places, states, substances, and other people’s beliefs and desires. The theory explains many zoologically unusual traits in Homo sapiens, including our complex toolkit, wide range of habitats and diets, extended childhoods and long lives, hypersociality, complex mating, division into cultures, and language (which multiplies the benefit of knowledge because know-how is useful not only for its practical benefits but as a trade good with others, enhancing the evolution of cooperation). The second hypothesis is that humans possess an ability of metaphorical abstraction, which allows them to coopt faculties that originally evolved for physical problem-solving and social coordination, apply them to abstract subject matter, and combine them productively. These abilities can help explain the emergence of abstract cognition without supernatural or exotic evolutionary forces and are in principle testable by analyses of statistical signs of selection in the human genome.

Based on the complexity theory, we propose here a review of the concept of reading, trying to understand this concept as a dynamic system, that is, therefore open, self-organized and non-linear. We also discuss the necessity of considering the integration of different forms of communication (verbal and nonverbal) involved in the act of reading digital texts, as well as considering some of the differences that they present in relation to graphics elements explored at those environments, and the navigation mechanisms that are different from the ones we usually find at printed texts. In the final part of this paper, we discuss results of researches that help us to understand reading as a complex adaptive system of processing multimodal texts that involves also abilities of navigation.

The aim of this paper is arguing that neurons must be recycled to learn how to deal with the recognition of the written word. The empirical evidence is given by neuroscience results. They demonstrate that: 1st, universally, there is a specialized region in the brain for recognizing the written word, the occipito-temporal ventral region; 2nd, neurons belonging to the mentioned region are not bio-psychologically programmed for recognizing the written word; 3rd, recognition is possible thanks to learning mechanisms, namely, to humans’ neuronal plasticity; to specialization of secondary and tertiary regions and to the interconnections among various language and cognitive regions, which allow recognizing the articulation of graphic invariant features, resulting in letter(s) that represent phonemes both with the function of distinguishing meaning. The paper ends with paleographic findings which show how metonymic processes played a role, structuring written systems and adapting them to the processing constraints of the human brain.

The article is the axis of Psycholinguistic Research. First, are presented background and paths that are being used to develop studies in this area. Then, the psycholinguistic research is analyzed from the standpoint of the theme, the interfaces and methods, being reported some psycholinguistic studies conducted in this direction, in the Center of Reference for the Development of Language - CELIN coordinated by the author of this article. Finally, are presented final comments on the future perspective of psycholinguistic studies.