A conlang como método de ensino de conceitos linguísticos: problemática e possíveis encaminhamentos

Abstract

The use of constructed language (conlang) as a means of teaching and learning knowledge and skills related to the understanding and description of natural languages has been gaining traction in undergraduate courses at some foreign universities, enabling students to perceive linguistic phenomena. In this thesis, we aim to demonstrate that by stimulating the creation of a fictional language, elementary school students can begin to understand concepts about the functioning of natural languages, especially their native language. A previous experiment had already been conducted (Girardi, 2020), and in this thesis, it is further explored through its application to students at a public school in the city of São Carlos. Our hypothesis is based on mediated and directed teaching (Feuerstein, 2014), which allows students to think scientifically and reflect on the object of study. We also associate this idea with the principle that every speaker possesses some type of intuition (Chomsky, 2006) about language, being able to discern what works or does not work in their native language. Based on this premise, our hypothesis is that students can create patterns to represent certain phenomena of their native language, such as plural marking, gender assignment, and tense marking, as possible expressions of their intuition. In this thesis, we also present a morphosyntactic analysis of the invented languages, demonstrating the linguistic concepts learned by the students. The goal of the research is to show that through playful activity, students can be encouraged to observe language scientifically. However, it is worth noting that there are several challenges in developing the method, and we therefore intend to present possible solutions as well.