Linguistik
Refine
Year of publication
- 2009 (2) (remove)
Document Type
- Article (2)
Language
- Portuguese (2) (remove)
Has Fulltext
- yes (2)
Is part of the Bibliography
- no (2)
Keywords
- Sprachunterricht (2) (remove)
O ensino/aprendizagem da metafonia do português como língua estrangeira por aprendizes alemães
(2009)
The present article deals with a phenomenon of the portuguese language which is well-known and yet rather neglected in brazilian schools as well as in schools abroad: metaphony. Since this regular vowel change is a phenomenon that foms part exclusively of speech and is not represented in writing, it constitutes a problem for foreign learners, in our case speakers of German. We therefore propose a strategy by the help of which the phenomenon of metaphony in Portuguese can be explained, based on analogies with a similar regular sound change in the German language, called Umlaut. Our study is based upon data collected among students at Christian-Albrechts-Universität in Northern Germany.
One of the most striking moments in the life of Brazilian children speaking a minority language happens when they go to elementary school. There, the attitude towards the family language is completely indifferent, if not openly hostile, since the school sees its duty limited to alphabetising the child in the official language, which is Portuguese. This article reflects on practical strategies for teaching school children speaking immigrant languages, focussing on the different meaning of alphabetisation in minority language contexts and on the advantages of early bilingualism, ascertained by research in cognitive science (cf. Bialystok 2005). Immigrant contexts of this nature are being studied in the linguistic atlas project ALMA-H (Atlas Linguístico-Contatual das Minorias Alemãs na Bacia do Prata - Hunsrückisch). Based on data from this project and considering the Brazilian educational context the article proposes strategies that could help to improve the alphabetisation process of those groups by reconciling the dissociation that separates school contexts from family contexts in areas of collective bilingualism in Brazil.