Contribuições Interculturais da Comédia Stand-Up para L2: uma abordagem da linguística de corpus
Data
2020-02-28
Autores
Silva, Lúcia Wutzl da
Orientadores
Pinto, Marcia Veirano
Tipo
Dissertação de mestrado
Título da Revista
ISSN da Revista
Título de Volume
Resumo
A importância da cultura na aquisição de uma segunda língua (L2) é posta em relevância pelo considerável número de estudos desenvolvidos nessa área (Hanna, 2012; Pulverness, 2014; Stempleski and Tomalin, 1993); entretanto, o conteúdo cultural dos materiais pedagógicos dedicados ao ensino de idiomas demonstra-se ainda incipiente (PULVERNESS, 2014). Para preencher tal lacuna, este estudo investiga possíveis contribuições culturais de textos que não foram desenvolvidos com o intuito de serem utilizados em sala de aula para a aquisição de uma L2. Tendo em vista as referências culturais que frequentemente emergem de textos humorísticos (BACHMAIER, 2017), bem como as vantagens da utilização desse registro em sala de aula de L2 (BELL, 2017), elegemos transcrições de comédia stand-up para a composição do corpus analisado nesta dissertação. O objetivo geral deste estudo é investigar possíveis contribuições de apresentações de comédia stand-up para a interculturalidade na aquisição de L2. Para tanto, pautados por critérios de diversidade tanto de etnicidade dos comediantes quanto de tópicos de seus textos, selecionamos dez apresentações de comédia stand-up de autores norte-americanos, que compuseram o corpus que foi, então, etiquetado pela ferramenta TreeTagger. O entendimento de que palavras comuns podem ter forte conotação cultural (STUBBS, 2002), especialmente quando ocorrem em expressões frequentes, nos levou a identificar cinco adjetivos que ocorreram nas apresentações de todos os 10 comediantes, a saber: good, little, other, white, e whole. Para a identificação de seus padrões de uso, e a consequente obtenção de suas possíveis conotações culturais, os textos do corpus foram submetidos ao programa de análise linguística AntConc, que nos forneceu as linhas de concordância que constituíram o ponto de partida de nossas análises. Os resultados atingidos demonstram que palavras que não têm óbvias referências culturais – como as cinco aqui estudadas – podem revelar comportamentos e atitudes culturais que estão arraigadas nas experiências de vida dos autores. Esse entrelaçamento entre língua e cultura se prestaria à exploração direcionada para o desenvolvimento da competência intercultural de aprendizes de L2, na medida em que os exporia a diferentes estruturas sociais, pressupostos e expectativas (PULVERNESS, 2014), proporcionando aos alunos uma tomada de consciência tanto de sua própria cultura quanto de uma cultura estrangeira.
The importance of culture in second language (L2) acquisition is highlighted by the considerable number of studies developed in this area (Hanna, 2012; Pulverness, 2014; Stempleski and Tomalin, 1993); however, the cultural content of L2 teaching material is still scarce (PULVERNESS, 2014). To fill this gap, this study investigates the potential cultural contributions of texts that were not developed for use in the classroom to the acquisition of a second language. Given the cultural references that often emerge from humorous texts (BACHMAIER, 2017), as well as the advantages of using such register in the L2 classroom (BELL, 2017), we chose stand-up comedy transcriptions to form the corpus analized in this thesis. The main objective here is to investigate the potential contribuitions of stand-up comedy shows to the building of intercultural knowledge during the acquisition of English as a foreign language. To that end, we selected ten stand-up comedy shows performed by North American authors. The main collection criteria were based on diversity in terms of both the ethnicity of the comedians and the performance topics. The corpus was tagged with the TreeTagger tool. The understanding that common words can have strong cultural connotations (STUBBS, 2002), especially when they occur in frequent expressions, led us to select five adjectives that occurred in the performance of all of the ten comedians, namely, good, little, other, white, and whole. To identify their patterns of use, and thus derive their potential cultural connotations, we submitted the corpus texts to the corpus- processing software AntConc, which provided us with the concordance lines that were the starting point of our analyses. The results show that words that do not have obvious cultural references – such as the five adjectives studied here – can reveal cultural behaviors and attitudes that are rooted in the authors' life experiences. This intertwining between language and culture could lend itself to studies aimed at developing intercultural competence of L2 learners, as it would expose them to different social structures, assumptions and expectations (PULVERNESS, 2014), providing learners with an awareness of both a home and a foreign culture.
The importance of culture in second language (L2) acquisition is highlighted by the considerable number of studies developed in this area (Hanna, 2012; Pulverness, 2014; Stempleski and Tomalin, 1993); however, the cultural content of L2 teaching material is still scarce (PULVERNESS, 2014). To fill this gap, this study investigates the potential cultural contributions of texts that were not developed for use in the classroom to the acquisition of a second language. Given the cultural references that often emerge from humorous texts (BACHMAIER, 2017), as well as the advantages of using such register in the L2 classroom (BELL, 2017), we chose stand-up comedy transcriptions to form the corpus analized in this thesis. The main objective here is to investigate the potential contribuitions of stand-up comedy shows to the building of intercultural knowledge during the acquisition of English as a foreign language. To that end, we selected ten stand-up comedy shows performed by North American authors. The main collection criteria were based on diversity in terms of both the ethnicity of the comedians and the performance topics. The corpus was tagged with the TreeTagger tool. The understanding that common words can have strong cultural connotations (STUBBS, 2002), especially when they occur in frequent expressions, led us to select five adjectives that occurred in the performance of all of the ten comedians, namely, good, little, other, white, and whole. To identify their patterns of use, and thus derive their potential cultural connotations, we submitted the corpus texts to the corpus- processing software AntConc, which provided us with the concordance lines that were the starting point of our analyses. The results show that words that do not have obvious cultural references – such as the five adjectives studied here – can reveal cultural behaviors and attitudes that are rooted in the authors' life experiences. This intertwining between language and culture could lend itself to studies aimed at developing intercultural competence of L2 learners, as it would expose them to different social structures, assumptions and expectations (PULVERNESS, 2014), providing learners with an awareness of both a home and a foreign culture.