Variação linguística, oralidade e desvios de ortografia em textos de alunos do 6. ano do Ensino Fundamental de Uberaba-MG

Abstract

This essay aims to investigate the types of orthographic deviations presented by sixth year Elementary School II students in a public school in Uberaba-MG, and to suggest an intervention proposal that will guarantee the students’ autonomy regarding the orthographic system, so as to provide a linguistic reflection upon the orthographic deviations and their relation with orality, as well as the consolidation of the non-dichotomous relationship between speech and writing. To this end, we analyzed the relationship between the students’ linguistic variations and spelling deviations present in text productions, as well as the teaching materials used by the sixth year teacher, observing the teachers’ approach (and whether there is an approach) to the orthographic deviations and linguistic variations. In addition, the Portuguese teachers at the school were asked to respond to a questionnaire so that we could learn about their posture towards the spelling deviations presented in the students' texts, and also their attitudes regarding the approach to linguistic variation and the relationship between speech and writing. Through the analyses of the participating students’ orthographic deviations, we observed that the most frequent are due to the interference of speech habits in writing. These deviations represent phonetic-phonological processes that occur in the Brazilian Portuguese spoken by these students. Therefore, based on the survey of the types of orthographic deviations, the Portuguese teachers’ answers to our questionnaire and knowing how the teaching materials adopted by the school deal with questions about reflections upon the language, our intervention proposal was a workbook with topics related to orthographic deviations, which aims to provide the students with access to prestige varieties, without downplaying the linguistic variations used, by making them reflect on the written modality and orthographic conventions, as well as helping them to understand the role of the linguistic variations, thus broadening their communicative competence and consolidating the relationship between speech and writing.