A vírgula em textos argumentativos de alunos do 9º ano do ensino fundamental: uma análise de usos não convencionais na perspectiva da prosódia

Abstract

Much is discussed about punctuation; its relevance to writing is attested by grammarians and linguists, but its relationship with prosody divides opinions. Luft (1998), author of a comma-specific grammar manual, states that in order for there to be an effective learning of the conventional use of this punctuation mark, its teaching must be disconnected from prosody instead, syntax being the only part of the grammar holder of autonomy to define the uses of this signal. Other authors such as Chacon (1998) and Corrêa (2004) find in their theses that writing has its own rhythm and that the language is heterogeneous, therefore, prosody is an integral part of writing, and cannot be left out or have value accessory. Motivated by the listed discussions and the complexity involved in the use of commas demonstrated by the writing subjects, as well as by the relevance of the proper use of this punctuation mark for maintaining the sense of the written text, we idealized this research that sought to present a more effective teaching methodology for the use of this punctuation mark. This methodology, which brings together prosodic, syntactic and enunciative aspects in the conduct of the teaching of the comma. To carry out the research, we chose Prosodic Phonology as the theoretical pillar, according to the model proposed by Nespor and Vogel (1986). Through the configurations of the prosodic constituents: phonological phrase ϕ and intonational phrase I, we outline the prosodic regularities present in the students' argumentative texts in order to verify if the unconventional uses of the comma coincided with prosodic boundaries, becoming evidence of the imaginary that subjects have on writing. The analyzes showed this intrinsic relationship between prosody and writing through the use of a comma, pointing out the coincidence with a non-final intonational phrase as regularity. In order to confirm our hypothesis that combining the conventional teaching of the comma with the phonological theories of prosody can alleviate the complexity involved in its use and thus contribute to the use of this punctuation mark more appropriate to the intended meaning and more consistent with the heterogeneous nature of In writing, we carried out an experiment with different theoretical approaches on the subject of the comma: one with an exclusively syntactic basis (control group) and another with a grammatical, prosodic and enunciative basis (experimental group). The result of the comparative analysis points to this prosodic direction as promising a more natural and effective learning, since the experimental group assimilated the content of the comma better, incurring less unconventional uses when producing argumentative texts.