Apresentação realizada no AAAL, Atlanta - Março, 2010.

1. AAAL
Atlanta
March, 2010
Written production and grammatical
metaphor in secondary school
Adriana Nogueira Nóbrega,
Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro
Lúcia Pacheco de Oliveira,
Catholic University, Rio de Janeiro
Magda Bahia Schlee
Rio de Janeiro State University

2. Background
Research project: ‘Writing and social inclusion:
corpus analysis and grammatical metaphor in
secondary school’
• Focus
Examine the written production of
adolescents from different socio-cultural
contexts
Relate literacy and social inclusion in Rio
de Janeiro, Brazil

3. Secondary public school:
student writing
Oralized writing
Lack of punctuation
Phonetic spelling
Lengthy sentences
Poor spelling
Difficulty in understanding text instructions
Limited use of varied grammatical patterns

4. Motivation
Written Brazilian Portuguese sometimes viewed as a foreign
language by secondary public school students
Problems faced by secondary students when writing texts
might be related to the lack of grammatical metaphor mastery
Difficulties in producing and understanding texts in different
school subjects might be connected to the lack of grammatical
metaphor awareness
(Martin, 1993; Christie, 2006; Oliveira, 2006,
Halliday, 1994; Heyvaert, 2003)

5. Objectives
Study the use of grammatical metaphor in public school
secondary student writing:
IdentifIcation and quantification of the use of grammmatical
metaphors in argumentative student texts
Observation of students’ socio-educational condition
variables
Comparison of metaphorical language use in secondary
school writing and university entrance exams

6. Questions
Do Brazilian secondary public school students use grammatical
metaphor in their texts?
Is students’ textual production in accordance with late
secondary school writing requirements?
Does the use of metaphorical language vary in secondary
school writing and university entrance exams?

7. Grammatical Metaphor
The process of metaphor is one of reconstruing the
patterns of realization in a language‘– particularly at the
interface between the grammar and the semantics. A
meaning that was originally construed by one kind of
wording comes instead to be construed by another.’
‘.... grammatical abstracness is the key for entering into
literacy, and to primary educational knowledge, so
grammatical metaphor is the key for entering into the
next level, that of secondary education, and of knowledge
that is discipline-based and technical.’
(Halliday,2009:117, 125)

8. Nominalizations
They are the predominant form of grammatical metaphor
They consist in the use of a nominal form to express a process
meaning
They may have different functions:
Creation of technical language
Creation of non-negotiable ‘thingfied’ experience
Encapsulation of meaning
Development of argumentation

9. Method
Participants:
12th grade Brazilian public school students from 14-18
years old (N=98)
Corpus:
Written argumentative texts collected in federal and state
schools
Topic adequate for:
Students’ age
Schools socio-educational context

10. Method
Data collection instruments:
Questionnaire on socio-educational conditions
Writing proposal with picture and newspaper headlines
as prompts
Samples:
250-word texts on quality of life in Rio de Janeiro
(N=92)
Questionnaires on reading and writing habits (N=98)

11. Questionnaire:
socio-educational condition variables
Students’ frequency of spontaneous vs. mandatory
reading and writing
Students’ reading habits
Students’ family reading habits

12. STUDENTS' AGE
19-24 > 25 years
years old old
11% 0%
14-18
years old
89%

13. STUDENTS' READING HABITS
Spontaneous
reading
9%
Obligatory
No reading reading
38% 53%

14. STUDENTS' SELF-EVALUATION ON
WRITING
Difficulty Facility to
to write write
37% 63%

15. WRITTEN GENRES PRACTICED BY STUDENTS
Poetry No
Varied writing
6%
10% 6%
Journal
5%
Orkut
37%
School
texts
36%

16. FAMILY READING HABITS
No
reading
6%
Frequent
reading
41%
Scarce
reading
53%

17. Text Analysis
Texts analyzed manually and with the help of computational
tools
Nominalizations from agnate verbs identified and counted :
Search based on productive noun suffixation in Portuguese
(Basilio, 2007)
Normalization of basic frequencies
Means calculated for each group

18. Proposal
Escreva um texto argumentativo, com cerca de 25 linhas, em que você
apresente o seu ponto de vista sobre a qualidade de vida na cidade do Rio
de Janeiro. A figura e as manchetes abaixo sugerem alguns aspectos que
podem ser abordados.
Rio: a cidade mais feliz do
mundo, segundo pesquisa
internacional.
Rio vai enfrentar enorme desafio
para receber olimpíadas 2016.
Vandalismo destrói história do rio
e custa caro aos cofres da cidade.
Operação choque de ordem atua
no centro do Rio.
Interchange. CUP, 2005

19. Results:
Schools - means of nominalizations
-cia -cias -ção -ções -dor -dores -ssão -ssões -mento -mentos
School 1 0,12 0,06 1,41 0,29 0,00 0,12 0,06 0,00 0,35 0,18
School 2 0,71 0,07 1,96 0,50 0,04 0,32 0,07 0,00 0,68 0,18
School 3
0,23 0,09 1,77 0,34 0,06 0,34 0,04 0,00 0,81 0,09
School 1 (State) : 17 texts / 2.776 words
Group frequencies normalized to 5000 words School 2 (Federal) : 28 texts / 6.045 words
School 3 (State) : 47 texts / 9.716 words

20. Results: comparison with university
entrance exams
Texts from three universities (CORPOBRAS PUC-
Rio *) (N=75):
− Two public and one private
Texts selected according to passing grades (≥ 5,0)
Same analytical procedures
(* Representative corpus of Brazilian Portuguese)

21. Sample 1:
Public Secondary School
Como será o Rio nas Olimpíadas 2.016
Todos nós sabemos que para receber as Olimpíadas 2.016 o Rio de Janeiro vai passar por um
processo longo e intenso de obras.
Essas obras tem a finalidade de limpar nossos rios, lagoas e praias para as provas que neles
serão realizadas; construir hotéis para receber e acomodar os turistas; melhorar o transporte
para que as pessoas possam chegar nos locais em um tempo adequado; reformar estádios para
receber os jogos e os torcedores com mais conforto; aumentar a segurança em nossa cidade
para que todos possam caminhar sem o medo de ser assaltado ou de ser surpreendido por uma
troca de tiros, e outras reformas mais.
Porém será que a limpeza dos rios, lagoas e praias, o aumento da segurança e outras coisas mais
não deveriam ser medidas tomadas a muito tempo, mesmo sem as Olimpíadas. Como será que
vai ficar o Rio de Janeiro depois que passar as Olimpíadas. As melhorias serão conservadas
pela população e pelo poder público, ou vai ser abandonada.
A idéia de trazer as Olimpíadas 2.016 para o Rio de Janeiro é muito animadora. Mas temos
que pensar nos pontos bons e tambem nos ruins.
(191 words)

22. Sample 2:
Public university
AS RELAÇÕES HUMANAS E A GLOBALIZAÇÃO
A consolidação do sistema capitalista e a adoção da ideologia neoliberal proporcionaram além
de profundas alterações sob a ótica econômica, modificações nas relações humanas. Diante
disso, discute-se, atualmente, o desenvolvimento do sentimento de inveja do homem moderno,
visto a valorização da competitividade e do individualismo.
É importante salientar que a abertura de mercados num mundo globalizado é determinante
para o acirramento do mercado de trabalho. Esse fato evidencia tanto a concorrência entre as
empresas globais quanto a disputa entre indivíduos por emprego e participação no sistema
econômico do país.
Outro fator relevante que incita o surgimento da inveja na sociedade atual consiste na
propagação do consumismo como base de sustentação da ideologia capitalista. É fundamental e
preocupante considerar, ainda, a grave desigualdade na distribuição de renda existente no país
como entrave às efetivas transformações sociais.
Nota-se, dessa forma, a necessidade de combater as disparidades sociais e a subordinação do
bem coletivo em relação aos interesses econômicos, a fim de garantir a inclusão social e o resgate
da cidadania. Para tanto, o respeito aos valores morais e éticos, bem como o desenvolvimento de
programas voluntários de solidariedade se fazem essenciais.
Fica claro, portanto, que a globalização econômica e a padronização de costumes na sociedade
atual confundem a busca por qualidade devida com o conceito de inveja, o que contribui para
formar uma geração alienada politicamente e à problemática social brasileira.
(229 words)

23. Comparison of school and entrance exam writing
4,00
3,55
3,50
3,00
cia
cias
2,50 ção
Mean scores
ções
dor
2,00
dores
ssão
1,44 1,42 ssões
1,50
mento
1,09 mentos
1,00
0,55
0,50
0,31
0,00
Universities Schools

24. Samples: summary of findings
Secondary public school students use fewer
nominalizations than those entering the university
Written texts do not match the writing proposal: more
discriptive (more processes than nominalizations)
Students’ written production is in accordance with the
expected production of early to mid secondary school
Students’ self-evaluation of their mastery of writing
is based on ‘out of school’ texts

25. Discussion
Brazilian secondary public school students’ written production is
misleveled:
At school they are expected to master different genres in
different subjects that require the use of metaphorical language
Transposition of oral language characteristics to written
language
Students’ perception towards their mastery in writing versus
problems observed in the selected samples
The mismatch may be related to students’ feeling that written
Brazilian Portuguese is, for them, “a foreign language”
This mismatch between secondary school literacy requirements
and students’ written production may lead into school failure

26. Implications
Make teachers aware of the need to teach the
grammatical metaphor
Make secondary students understand the function
of grammatical metaphor in writing
Make learners able to use it in their texts in
different disciplines
Make educators - in general - aware of the real
literacy situation which might be strictly
connected to social exlcusion

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