Between the silence and the sayable: a discursive study of the English language curriculum in bilingual schools

• Grant number: 12/21924-3
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: January 01, 2013
• End date: March 31, 2016
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Literature - Modern Foreign Languages
• Principal Investigator: Marisa Grigoletto
• Grantee: Laura Fortes
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This doctoral research proposal aims at analyzing discourses produced in/by some bilingual school institutions in São Paulo city, focusing specially on issues related to the English language curriculum. We depart from the current context of EFL teaching in those institutions, which have been spreading all over Brazil in the last decades due to an increasing demand for the acquisition of this language at an earlier and earlier age (Corredato, 2010; Mello, 2002). Our specific interest in studying the curriculum is justified by the fact that, although it plays an important role as a formalization tool in the bilingual school, its configuration seems to encompass sayings which regulate certain practices and knowledge. At the same time, such configuration also produces silencing processes (Orlandi, 2002). We understand that this discursive functioning is constituted, on the one hand, by the weakening/absence of linguistic policies on EFL teaching in Brazil and, on the other hand, by the strengthening of the market society (Orlandi 2007). Therefore, we propose to analyze the constitution of the curriculum in a discursive perspective according to which languages cannot be conceived as detached from their relationship with the political and the historical (Pêcheux, 1975; Pêcheux, 1983; Orlandi, 2001; Orlandi, 2007).

Scientific publications

(References retrieved automatically from Web of Science and SciELO through information on FAPESP grants and their corresponding numbers as mentioned in the publications by the authors)

FORTES, LAURA. The emergence of bilingual education discourse in Brazil: bilingualisms, language policies, and globalizing circumstances. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM, v. 20, n. 5, p. 574-583, 2017. (12/21924-3)

Academic Publications

(References retrieved automatically from State of São Paulo Research Institutions)

FORTES, Laura. Between the silenced and the sayable: a discursive study of meanings of bilingualism, bilingual education and curriculum in Portuguese-English bilingual schools. 2016. Doctoral Thesis - Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD) São Paulo.