O desenvolvimento da competência metonímica e metafórica em aulas de Inglês: uma proposta a partir dos multiletramentos e do pensamento figurado

Abstract

Metonymy and metaphor are pervasive and central phenomena in our cognition, language (Radden and Kövecses, 1999; Lakoff; Johnson, 2002 [1980]) and discourse (Vereza, 2007, 2010, 2013a and 2013b). Littlemore and Low (2006a) argue that metonymy and metaphor are fundamental to language and its use, and that, because of this, additional language learners really need to engage with them. Given this, it would be natural that metonymy and metaphor, the most fundamental figures, should have a prominent role in additional language classes. However, developing aspects related to figurative language can become a challenge for the teacher, especially with students who are beginners. Thus, this study, in an attempt to fill this gap, has the general objective of verifying to what extent it is possible to develop the skills of understanding and producing metonymies and metaphors, that is, metonymic and metaphorical competence, in English as an additional language classes based on figurative thinking (Littlemore; Low, 2006a) and multiliteracies as pedagogical constructs (Kalantzis; Cope, 2012; Cope; Kalantzis, 2015; Kalantzis; Cope; Pinheiro, 2020). This study also has a specific objective: (i) to bring together the figurative thinking routine (Littlemore; Low, 2006a) and the knowledge processes of multiliteracies pedagogy (Kalantzis; Cope, 2012; Cope; Kalantzis, 2015; Kalantzis; Cope; Pinheiro, 2020). From a methodological point of view, this research is part of a qualitative approach. The data were generated with twenty-seven students in the context of developing English as an additional language classes, in two public schools in a municipality in the mountainous region of the state of Rio Grande do Sul. The research corpus is composed of (a) – answers given by the students to each question, whether written on forms or speech transcripts; (b) – explanations and diagrams made by the teacher, whether written on lesson plans or speech transcripts -; (c) – posts produced by the students - . The results show that it was possible to develop the metonymic and metaphoric competence of the participants. It is concluded that the approximation between the figurative thinking routine and the knowledge processes of the pedagogy of multiliteracies appear to be effective for the development of these competences.