Agência na história do ensino de língua portuguesa em universidades dos Estados Unidos

• Ano de defesa: 2022
• Autor(a) principal: Soares, Cynthia Israelly Barbalho Dionísio
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Universidade Federal da Paraíba; Brasil; Linguística; Programa de Pós-Graduação em Linguística; UFPB
• Palavras-chave em Português: Linguística aplicada; Agência docente; Língua portuguesa - Ensino; Universidades norte-americanas; Política linguística; Estados Unidos da América; Applied linguistics; Teaching agency; Portuguese language - Teaching; North American Universities; Language policy; United States; Politique linguistique; États-Unis; CNPQ::LINGUISTICA, LETRAS E ARTES::LINGUISTICA
• Link de acesso: https://repositorio.ufpb.br/jspui/handle/123456789/27030

The aim of this work is to investigate the language policy of Portuguese language teaching in universities in the United States. Specifically, this study aimed to historicize the trajectory of Portuguese language teaching in higher education institutions in the United States and to analyze mediating elements of Portuguese language teachers' agency in universities in this country. The theoretical framework presents the trajectory of the understanding of the concept of agency in the studies of Language Policy and Planning, according to the characteristics attributed to the agency in each identified perspective: impersonal, organizational and rational; explicit and individual; oppressive and self-interested; and situated, multiple and creative. The concept of agency used in this work was produced based on the comparison of definitions identified in the literature review. This is a research with a qualitative and interpretive epistemological approach. The methods used to achieve the objectives were bibliographic and documentary research and semi-structured interviews with working professors in four universities in the state of Connecticut (CT). The bibliographic and documentary data allow the interpretation that the trajectory of Portuguese language teaching in higher education institutions in the United States can be visualized at six distinct moments, according to the predominant social reasons for encouraging language teaching-learning found in the surveyed publications: dilettante period (1816-1919), pan-American period (1920-1939), strategic period (1940-1959), ideological period (1960-1979), globalizing period (1980-1999) and international period (2000-2016). In contrast, the data from interviews support the categorization of Portuguese language teachers into three different sets, with the respective mediating elements of their agency. For the teachers associated with the Foreign Language Teaching Assistantship (FLTA) program, the Fullbright's program principles, the textbook and the relationships with other FLTAs and members of their institutions were the main mediators of their teacher agency. For the associate professors of Portuguese language, the institutional structures, their professional self-prescriptions and their working conditions were the predominant mediating elements. For the professor of literature in Portuguese, the institutional structures and his intellectual training were the most prominent elements. The mediating elements of the agency pointed out by Portuguese language teachers in North American universities were mostly limiting and revealed that employees often see themselves acting against the institutional structure, considered adverse to the maintenance of Portuguese language teaching. The discussion undertaken in this study allows the support of the argument that the language policy of Portuguese language teaching in universities in the United States that has historically been built in the country has set up a character of "marginal prestige" to the teaching of the language in this context that has a predominantly limiting impact on teacher agency today. The main theoretical contributions of this work lie in the elaboration of a specific notion of agency in language policy, in the evidence of the role of teachers as language policymakers, and in the periodization of Portuguese language teaching in higher education institutions in the United States.