09 DE MAIO – QUARTA-FEIRA
Local - UFSC
9:00hs – 10:30hs – Mesas-redondas
Língua Inglesa - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Auditório Garapuvu - 1º andar
Coordenadora – Adriana Dellagnelo (UFSC)
“Teacher education in the age of technology”
- Douglas Consolo (UNESP) – Teacher development in the Teletandem Brasil project: some experiences
Technology is present in several contexts and processes of language learning and teaching (henceforth LLT), and plays an important role in teacher education as well. It isimportantto remember that ‘technology’ refers not only to electronic tools used in classrooms and in language lessons but also to other instruments, resources and tools one uses to help or support LLT, as stated by Consolo and Fernandes (2010). Language teachers and teacher educators have a variety of teaching resources and tools available to enrich their lessons, among which computers and the internet outstand as extremely useful technological aids. In this presentation I depart from an overview of technology in language lessons and proceed towards a report on some experiences about teacher development within the project Teletandem Brasil: foreign languages for all, conducted at two campi of the UNESP (State University of Sao Paulo), counting on partnerships with a number of universities in other countries. Students of Letters at UNESP had partners from the universities abroad, with whom they interacted in Portuguese and in a foreign language. By means of teletandem interactions, Letter students could not only develop language skills in the foreign languages used but also practice and reflect about aspects of learning and teaching those languages, and this is an example of a way of successfully incorporating technology in language teacher education.
- Vanderlei Zacchi (UFS) – Expecting the Unexpected: Teacher Education in an Age of Uncertainty
Foreign language teachers nowadays are exposed to a number of factors that can challenge not only their authority, but also the very knowledge about the subjects that they are supposed to teach. If in previous times teachers were recognized as the holders of knowledge par excellence – and by means of which they would exert their authority – nowadays they are dependent on the context of the classroom as a starting point from which to design the contents of their classes. The teacher is thus forced to deal with the unknown, the uncertain, the unexpected. Much of this uncertainty is brought about by the students themselves. This presentation aims at discussing two of such aspects. Firstly, students nowadays have access to a whole range of information by means of the new technologies of communication, outperforming in some cases the teachers themselves. Secondly, diversity is increasingly becoming a decisive factor. If in previous times school was supposed to impart pre-established knowledge, independently of the intended audience, thus homogenizing it, nowadays it is necessary to take into account several forms of diversity in the classroom. Such diversity has come to play an increasingly prominent role in the construction of knowledge. These two aspects strongly contribute for the degree of uncertainty and ambiguity that English language teachers may have to confront in the classroom. Preparing them for facing the unexpected is therefore an indispensable task in teacher education nowadays.
- Maximina Freire (PUC-SP) - Tensions and conflicts in the self-hetero-eco technological education
From a complex perspective (Morin, 2005, 2008), the education of teachers requires a conception that transcends a temporal and linear approach, to be understood as a self-hetero-eco educational process (Freire, 2009) which, simultaneously and recursively, emphasizes the role of individual, of the Other, and of the environment in formative processes. In the technological era, particularly, such processes are affected by speed and immediatism and, as a result, they tend to be distinguished by the growing need for an instrumental competence and technological updating. In such a scenario, tensions and conflicts emerge, and they seem to be aggravated, on the one hand, by some recently imposed labels – teachers are seen as analogical within a digital world; as digital immigrants facing digital native students – and, on the other hand, by the distance that keeps teachers away from the social networks which young people are immersed in and inescapably captured by. Such tensions and conflicts are the focus of this presentation that aims at discussing and reflecting upon their meanings and implications for self-hetero-eco technological education.
Literaturas de Língua Inglesa - Prédio da Reitoria - Auditório - Térreo
Coordenadora – Cristina Maria Stevens (UnB)
“Post-colonial technologies”
- Peônia Guedes (UERJ) – Trying to be Canadian: an investigation about identity issues as represented in contemporary Canadian fiction
Since the settlement of the country, Canadian culture and, more specifically, Canadian literature, have been intrinsically connected to the varied, and constantly modified, concepts and representations of personal and national identity. Scholars of different areas have emphasized the significant efforts carried out by Canadian political authorities as well as by artists and authors in establishing the distancing of the modern Canadian nation and culture from a colonial mentality. This movement was particularly significant in the decades between 1920 and 1960 and it brought about the establishment of the Canadian artistic and literary independence. However, in the 1960s, a threat to this independence loomed large in the horizon: the overwhelming neocolonial influence exerted by the USA artistic and literary industries upon Canadian cultural life. In the past four decades, Canada has fought in various fronts and in different ways against this new brand of imperialism at the same time the country becomes a new haven for contemporary migratory waves. In this presentation, my aim is to investigate the emergence of different forms of agency and empowerment as represented in the contemporary Canadian fiction produced by women authors of aboriginal, diasporic or mainstream positions. Works by Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Margaret Atwood, Maria Campbell, Lee Maracle, Dionne Brand, Rita Wong, Larissa Lai and Madeleine Thien, among others, will be discussed in connection with the identity issues they represent in their fiction, and the discussion will be informed by the tenets of The Feminist and Postcolonial Studies.
- Miguel Nevené (UNIR) – Marcio Souza´s Mad Maria and Pauline Melville´s The Ventriloquist´s Tale: postcolonialism and the development discourse
The need for development studies that is postcolonial in theory and practice is now increasingly acknowledged in regions, such as the Brazilian Amazon. This means recognizing the significance of language and representation, the power of development discourse and its material effects on the lives of people subject to development policies. This situation is being experienced, for example, nowadays when dams are being built on the Madeira River. In the name of progress native communities are disregarded and their voices neglected. One may evaluate, critically”, the discourses of development, knowledge, and power as Arturo Escobar suggests.In this work I would like to explore both Marcio Souza´s Mad Maria and Pauline Melville´s The Ventriloquist Tale from the postcolonial perspective. I argue that these novels suggest a conflict between Western cultures versus Amerindian culture, the myth of progress and development in contrast with native tradition. In Melville´s work, for instance, grandmother Koko, by stating that “all novelty or innovation is a sign of death“ advocates the necessity to negotiate a way of being between assimilation of “progress” and “keeping intact..” Postcolonial critics such as Edward Said, Albert Memmi among others provide a useful point of departure for this paper. Scholars such Arturo Escobar and Jonathan Crush who investigate the development discourse will also support my reading.
- Rubelise da Cunha (FURG) – ‘The unending appetite for stories’: Genre theory, indigenous theatre and Tomson Highway’s ‘Rez Cycle’
Drama confirms the roots of Indigenous literatures in traditional storytelling performances; therefore it contributes to a theoretical approach to literary genres that is Indigenous-centered and focuses on how stories shape the literary text. Tomson Highway’s “Rez Cycle” exemplifies how theatre gives continuity to Cree/Ojibway storytelling through a representation of past and present, history and myth, and through the performance of the rituals of sacrifice that produce feelings of transformation and healing each time Nanabush is resurrected. His plays establish a dialogue with new approaches to Genre Theory and validate Indigenous theatre as a form of symbolic action that performs kinesthetic healing in actors and audience.
Língua Inglesa e Literaturas de Língua Inglesa - CFH - Centro de Filosofia e Ciências Humanas - Auditório - Térreo
Coordenador – Lincoln Fernandes (UFSC)
“Corpus-based Translation Studies: A new way of looking at translated texts?!”
- Stella Tagnin (USP) – CorTrad – a bi-directional English-Portuguese corpus to enhance teaching and translation
Corpus Linguistics, as its name indicates, is based on corpus, which is a carefully compiled collection of texts. To study translation, this corpus could be comparable, i.e., constituted of original texts in two or more languages, dealing with the same issues, or parallel, composed of originals and their translations. The latter, due to the difficulty of compiling it, is rarer. Specifically for the Portuguese-English pair there are COMPARA and CorTrad, both bi-directional corpora. The first is restricted to excerpts of literary texts, while the second is divided into three subcorpora: a literary, a technical-scientific and a journalistic one. The CorTrad is part of the CoMET project, based at the University of São Paulo. Its great advantage is to provide, whenever possible, multiple versions of a translation. The literary part, for example, has three versions: the first version made by students, the corrected version after comments received from the teacher, and, finally, the version published after being revised by a professional translator. Furthermore, searches are customized according to the type of corpus, allowing a very detailed analysis of the texts - originals and translations - that compose it. We will illustrate how various translation issues can be dealt with by searching the CorTrad.
- Lincoln Fernandes (UFSC) - Ferramentas com base em Corpus na Formação do Tradutor: desenvolvendo as sub-competêcias instrumental e linguística
O objetivo deste trabalho é demonstrar a importância das ferramentas com base em corpus no desenvolvimento das sub-competências instrumental e linguística do tradutor
- Daniel Antônio de Souza Alves (UFPB) - Interfaces between Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies in Brazil (2006-2010)
This work aims at analyzing the methodologies adopted to tackle Translation Studies in Brazil - more specifically, those that were designed to promote interfaces between Corpus Linguistics and areas of research in Translation. The corpus is made out of theses and dissertations from the time span of 2006-2010, downloaded from Domínio Público (http://www.dominiopublico.gov.br/), a state website that publishes researches carried out in Brazil. Using the site engine, an investigation was carried out to identify the works that are affiliated to the discipline of Translation Studies and employed Corpus Linguistics as a methodological tool. The first stage of the investigation resulted in 294 occurrences of theses and dissertations related to the macro-topic ‘translation’. Further analyses revealed that 47 (15.99%) of those works mentioned Corpus Linguistics in their abstracts. Of the 47 works that employ Corpus Linguistics as methodological tool, 18 (38.30%) focused on lexical analyses; 17 (36.17%) employed Systemic-Functional Linguistics as theoretical background; four (8.51%) aimed at translators education; three (6.38%) were focused on Computer-Aided Translations; two (4.26%) were focused on analyses of cultural domains; two (4.26%) dealt with children’s literature and textual analyses; and one (2.13%) analyzes the construction of metaphors. The next stages of this research will be focused on scrutinizing how Brazilian researches operate in the interface between Corpus Linguistics and Systemic-Functional Linguistics.
10:30hs – 10:45hs – Intervalo
10:45hs – 12:00hs – Conferências
Língua Inglesa - Prédio da Reitoria - Auditório - Térreo
“How do university students write in English around the world? A corpus linguistic perspective”– Tony Berber Sardinha (PUC-SP)
Every day, large numbers of people speak and write in English every day, regardless of whether they are native speakers or not. One of the largest groups across English speakers is students of English as a foreign language, and it is estimated that over one billion people learn English worldwide. As teachers of English know too well, there is a wide range of variation in the way students of English write compositions. Even though at the micro-level of classroom teaching teachers experience variation first-hand, it is hard to have a similar experience at a more macroscopic level, say by comparing students from different countries or whose mother tongues are different. Fortunately, Corpus Linguistics provides both tools and techniques that enable us to approach variation at a macro-level and to determine the underlying parameters of variation. In this talk, I address issues related to variation in learner writing in English from a corpus linguistic perspective*. More specifically, I look at how students from 17 different national backgrounds write argumentative essays, drawn from the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), which includes the following varieties: European (Bulgaria, Czech, Finland, France, Germany, Italian, Netherlands, Norwegian, Poland, Russia, Spain, Sweden), Asian (China, Japan), Middle East (Turkey), African (Tswana speakers), and South American (Brazil). This large corpus of 4+ million words and over 6 thousand texts was automatically annotated for a range of linguistic features and then analyzed using a framework known as Multi-Dimensional Analysis, which aims at identifying the underlying communicative parameters of variation across texts. Firstly, the compositions were mapped onto the dimensions for native speaker English (based on Biber, 1988), to see how student writing fits within the distribution of registers written and spoken by native speakers. Results showed student argumentative writing to be mostly involved, informational, non-narrative, explicit, persuasive and abstract. There was variation across national backgrounds on each of these dimensions, in ways that were not easily predicted ahead of time. For example, Japanese writers tended to be more ‘involved’ (interacting with the reader), whereas the Chinese tended to be more informational (distancing from the reader while presenting facts and figures), and Brazilians half-way between these two poles. But when essays were not compared to the native speaker dimensions, but with each other thus enabling the extraction of learner writing dimensions, the analysis gave rise to three different dimensions, namely involvement/factual exposition, hypothetical/narrative account, overt/covert argumentation. Again, there was wide variation across the different countries for each of these dimensions. Finally, based on the most typical characteristics of each text on these dimensions, a set of national styles was proposed, which includes the following: Brazilians: narrative style; Chinese / German / Japanese: factual; Dutch / Norwegian / Russian: involved, to mention just a few. Results call into question some long-standing beliefs about how different nationalities write in English. In the talk, examples will be given, and implications to university writing will be discussed.
*This talk reports joint work with Denise Delega.
Literaturas de Língua Inglesa - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Auditório Garapuvu - 1º andar
“Literature, Nature, Citizenship, and Global Flows: Of Transnational and Transcultural Crossroads”– Roland Walter (UFPE)
In taking as a starting point a discussion of the term post/transnationality, the keynote speech transits between texts and ideas problematizing the relation between individual and collective identity and the role of literature in the constitution of citizenship within the framework of global electronic media and migration fluxes.
Its hypothesis is twofold. First, globalization produces a consumerism where local differences are effaced and an ethics that recognizes and valorizes the right to be culturally different. This tension between cultural homogenization and cultural heterogenization has to be seen in connection with the tension between belonging to a national place and being mobile in transnational space. Thus, at the heart of this double constraint of the structures of capital worlding and cultural belonging the aporia seems to lie precisely in the necessity humanity faces, and the impossibility it struggles against, of collectively imagining a new form of citizenship, a new image of the relation between rooted and routed membership in a community; that is, between a national and a transnational, diasporic identity. Second, if words render the world a recognizable space composed of home places, that is, if the power of words resides in the fact that words through memory recuperate a world of references that (re)constitutes identity in a historical process, then it is through words in literature that visions and alter-visions of citizenship are traced, or rather culturally translated. Thus, it is in literary representation that possibilities of cultural transformation reside since it reveals the fissures of cultural fusions (and vice versa); that which does not make sense because of its incommensurability and/or contradictory complementarity. In this sense, the signification of literature resides in its art of interruption. In other words, literary narration is less an arrival than a perpetual departure; a journey that renders previous understanding and comprehension unheimlich. The home of literature, then, is the possibility of new utopias through the articulation of different worldings: diverse knowledges, worldviews, forms of relationship, etc. In this sense, literature constitutes a crossroads where subjectivities and identities are formed and performed.
The following questions and issues link the two hypotheses: How does identity and citizenship figure in the digital age of cybernations and netizens? What is the relation between the virtual spaces of computer and media networks and forms and practices of ethnicity that are emerging from transnational ethnoscapes or flows of displaced peoples and workforces across national boundaries? If the conditions of globalization are not only capitalism and imperialism, but the link between human beings, the machine and the environment, then it is necessary to take into account the cultural construction of the human-machine/ human-nature interface and, as literary critics and cultural workers, to ask how literary representation renders this interface. In other words, how does literature translate and negotiate the disruptive in-between zone of inter- and intracultural disjunctures and conjunctures— the place where diverse histories, customs, values, beliefs and cognitive systems are contested and interwoven— as inhabited place, that is, as affective geography? What are the theoretical tools to map and measure this inhabited contact zone? In the process of giving tentative and partial answers, the keynote speech will elaborate a link between the political unconscious, the cultural unconscious and the ecological unconscious of the human-machine/ human-nature interface that surfaces in international multi-ethnic writing; a transwriting that, in the face of natural catastrophes, instantiates a decolonizing attitude towards nature in that it searches for new forms of cohabitation involving the entire biota.
12:00hs – 14:00hs – Almoço
14:00hs – 16:00hs – Comunicações coordenadas (Língua Inglesa e Literaturas de Língua Inglesa)
16:00hs – 16:30hs – Coffee-break / Book Exhibit - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Hall - 1º andar
16:00hs – 17:00hs - Sessão de Posters III - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Hall - 1º andar
16:30hs – 18:00hs – Conferência de Encerramento - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Auditório Garapuvu - 1º andar
Malcolm Coulthard (Aston University)
“Forensic linguistics in the age of technology”
Forensic Linsguists work in three distinct but linked areas: the Language of the Law; the Language of the Legal Process; and Language as Evidence. While much of the work is descriptive, in recent years Forensic Linguists have become growingly involved in what can usefully be seen as a branch of
Within the Language of the Law linguists not only describe the characteristics of the specialized language(s) used, but also concern themselves with how such specialized language can impede communication between legal professionals and lay addressees. Linguists have acted in court cases as expert witnesses for plaintiffs claiming they have been prejudiced by incomprehensible text in contracts, product warnings and official letters and they have drawn on corpus evidence to do so.
In the Language of the Legal Process linguists are researching the nature of professional-lay interaction from calls to the emergency services, through arrest, police interrogation and lawyer consultation to all the stages of the trial itself. Again description often leads to intervention: to suggestions for improving the recording of pre-trial evidence collected from crime suspects and witnesses and the subsequent court interaction to proposals for technologically improved ways of handling both child witnesses and non-native speakers in court.
Within Language as Evidence linguists act as expert witnesses for both Prosecution and Defence, often significantly influencing the outcome of trials. They express opinions on the authorship of text messages, of emails and of student assignments; on the meaning of words and expressions; on the degree of similarity between rival trademarks; on the linguistic ability of non-native speakers; and on the likelihood that a voice recorded committing a crime is that of the suspect. As the techniques of linguistic analysis improve, aided by parsers and programs like Wordsmith, they are ever more frequently and rapidly computerized and even the presentation of evidence in court is benefiting from technological advances in teaching methodology.
18:00hs – Encerramento - Centro de Cultura e Eventos - Auditório Garapuvu - 1º andar