The approach to linguistic variation in the English without Borders program: from theory to practice

• Autor(a) principal: Barbosa, Matheus de Almeida
• Data de Publicação: 2017
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: por
• Título da fonte: Revista Entretextos
• Texto Completo: https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/entretextos/article/view/29026
• topic: Linguistic variation; English as a foreign Language; English without borders; Variación Lingüística; Inglés como Lengua Estrajera; Inglés sin fronteras; Variação Linguística; Inglês como Língua Estrangeira; Inglês sem Fronteiras.

English shows variations regarding geographical distribution, situational context and social status. Considering the context of Teaching English as a Foreign Language, this paper aims to investigate the testimonies of how linguistic variation is approached in English language classes in the Brazilian Government program English Without Borders (EwB), at the Federal University of Paraíba (UFPB). It is an exploratory study, which makes use of a semi-structured interview script (MANZINI, 2003), in order to collect the data needed to answer the question that guides this research. We started searching for a concept of language that incorporates the study of linguistic variation, as well as an approach to foreign language teaching that includes the study of such variations among its assumptions. Thus, based on the study of Sociolinguistics and the Communicative Approach, based on researches made by Labov (2008) and Hymes (1972), we emphasize the importance of teaching linguistic variation in the classes. The results show that the teachers of the EwB program have demonstrated to know about linguistic variation and consider it important to teach different variants in the classroom. Moreover, they try to show their students that differences occur in how it is used and that such differences are important to a contextual use of language