The divulgation of the linguistics in Brazil: what linguistics say and how they speak to the lay public

• Grant number: 21/07252-1
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: October 01, 2021
• End date: September 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Linguistic Theory and Analysis
• Principal Investigator: Carlos Félix Piovezani Filho
• Grantee: Caio Vinícius da Silva Barros
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project intends to analyze discourses about the divulgation of Linguistics in Brazil, through the description and interpretation of what they say and how experts and graduates of Linguistics Courses speak, on occasions when they are addressed to the lay public. Based on this analysis, we will seek to deduce some of the main achievements that the scientific divulgation of Linguistics has already achieved in the country and some of the main difficulties it still faces. The data set to be analyzed will consist of answers to a questionnaire applied to three specialists and three graduates of the last year of three Linguistics Courses, which deals with their training and experiences in the divulgation of Linguistics. The French line of discourse analysis and the interfaces between DA, the History of linguistic ideas and Rhetoric will constitute the theoretical and methodological foundation of our research. More precisely, our objectives consist of the following: a) to analyze how linguists and linguistics graduates assess their role in society, when they present their craft, the already relatively well-established postulates and the more or less recent advances in their field of knowledge to lay people; b) examine the speeches of these professionals about what they say and their ways of saying it in circumstances of scientific divulgation; c) and identify affinities and singularities, achievements and difficulties in the experiences of training and acting in practices of divulgation of Linguistics, considering the diversity of its contexts, genres and linguistic modalities. The strength and reach of linguistic prejudice discourses, on the one hand, and the need to advance in the training of linguists for scientific divulgation, on the other, contribute to the reproduction of these prejudices and to the conservation of obstacles that make it difficult to carry out more effective dialogues with the lay public. An important step towards overcoming this situation is the establishment of a more accurate diagnosis of the phenomena that constitute it. This project intends to contribute to this diagnosis and to other advances in the divulgation of Linguistics in Brazil. (AU)