Revisiting linguistic awareness: Appropriation of the concept by future teachers of Portuguese

Abstract

This paper draws attention to the importance of the ability to reflect on the Portuguese language (LP), specifically in the case of future teachers of Portuguese. It begins with the theoretical framework that relates to the British Movement Language Awareness, which started in the eighties of the last century, and its subsequent developments. It intends to analyze the appropriation of the concept of linguistic awareness (CL) by final year students of a master’s course for the 1st cycle of compulsory education, by generalist teachers, and, therefore, also by Portuguese teachers. To this end, in a lesson on CL, students are asked, through two written questions, about the time and circumstance in which they became aware of their mother tongue and about the contacts with foreign languages and their impact on the language awareness (mother tongue or foreign). The general results point to a non-appropriation of the concept of CL, which is identified with the acquisition of oral or written language. The contacts with foreign languages are practically limited to the ones learned in the school context. In terms of the impact of these languages in the mother tongue or other language awareness, it was very tenuous, implying only a perception of a few differences (particularly lexical) existing between the Romance languages contacted/ learned and the LP. Two plausible explanations for these results are: (i) the fact that these students have had no other linguistic and cultural experiences in other geographic areas, or contact with other speakers of other varieties of Portuguese, or with foreigners and their languages; (ii) the course’s own profile, which does not specialize in a particular area, but generalizes all areas.

Keywords: linguistic awareness, Portuguese language, future teachers of Portuguese.