INTERCULTURALITY, REPRESENTATION AND IDENTITY IN CONTEXTS OF FOREIGN LANGUAGE LEARNING VIA TELETANDEM

Abstract

The main objective of this work is aimed to analyze the representations that emerged from the teletandem interactions among foreign language learners, regarding the historical-political aspects of their countries, discussing the negotiations of these representations in the interactional process in dialogue with the other interacting agent. The data analyzed were extracted from the interactions in Portuguese, carried out among North American undergraduates, Portuguese learners and Brazilian undergraduate students, English learners. It is based on Bronckart's (2012) discussion of representation, subject in the postmodernity of Hall (2002) and in the concept of culture as proposed by Welsch (1999), cross-cultural, hybrid and heterogeneous process based on dynamic relations among cultures. Through a qualitative interpretative analysis, it was observed that the teletandem learning context constituted an important locus for intercultural contact. Therefore, it was verified that the representations were enunciated from political-ideological and contextual positions, thus, a reflexive discussion of these representations is important, in order that not to become a fossilized knowledge. Finally, the identities of the participants are also built in dynamic processes and are characterized by fluidity and heterogeneity.