Falantes de português uruguaio aprendendo português brasileiro: análise de necessidades de agentes penitenciários uruguaios

Abstract

Language for Specific Purposes (LSP) is the approach used in the Centro de Ensino e Pesquisa de Línguas Estrangeiras Instrumentais (CEPESLI/UFSM) for the development and implementation of Portuguese courses to Uruguayan Federal Agents, supported by Brazil‟s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The current project aims at teaching Portuguese to correctional officers in order to prepare them to interact with Brazilians convicts either when living or passing by Uruguay. In this context, given the fact that most of the border prison guards are native speakers of Uruguayan Portuguese (PU), a variety of Brazilian Portuguese, we found it relevant to investigate further their learning needs in learning that variety. Hence, this study aims to present a Needs Analysis for teaching/learning Brazilian Portuguese to/by Uruguayan Portuguese speakers. For that purpose, we initially proceeded to study the characteristics of the border Uruguay-Brazil and Uruguayan Portuguese in their historical, linguistic, social and political aspects (CARVALHO, 2003a, 2003b, 2007, 2008, 2010; MILÁN, SAWARIS e WELTER, 1996; e STURZA, 2005, 2006, 2014). Since we also based our research on the Language for Specific Purposes Approach, we present its history, characteristics and a review or the bibliography on the teaching of Portuguese as a Foreign Language according to this approach (HUTCHINSON e WATERS, 1987; e DUDLEY-EVANS e ST. JOHN, 1998). Regarding the methodology to identify the UP speakers‟ beliefs we followed Barcelos (1995, 2000, 2001, 2004, 2006, 2007) and Pajares (1992); and Error Analysis (CORDER, 1967, 1971; SANTOS GARGALLO, 2004) to analyze the linguistic production in Portuguese of Uruguayan PU speakers, in contrast to the Brazilian Portuguese. The subjects of this study were four Uruguayan prison officers, all men, at Cerro Carancho, in Rivera-ROU. The results indicate that the correctional officers should learn the Brazilian Portuguese variety specifically to communicate with Brazilians who are in Uruguayan prisons; it also showed that subjects believe they need to learn to write in Portuguese, fix some aspects of their speech and learn ("improve") their Portuguese to speak to Brazilians who are not from the border area. Finally, the analysis shows that the subjects ignore the origins of their native language, what might be useful in the learning of Brazilian Portuguese as well as it would be to know about some varieties of Portuguese; that they need to cope some linguistic and sociolinguistic problems related to the use of stigmatized forms and errors of relevance and/or discursive errors.