A leitura crítica de textos multimodais nas aulas de inglês: uma proposta de letramento com base na linguística sistêmico-funcional

Abstract

According to the PCN, the teaching of English should contribute to the formation of inquisitive and autonomous individuals, who should be able to make use of language as social practice. This work aims at presenting a proposal to develop critical literacy through reading (KLEIMAN, 1995; SOARES, 2006) in order to fulfill this need. To reach such goal, I indicate forms to approach multimodal texts didactically through Critical Discourse Analysis (FAIRCLOUGH, 2003) by using the theoretical-analytical framework and the categories offered by Systemic Functional Linguistics. The relevance of studying texts with images at school is the possibility to bring to this environment the discussion of how the two semioses express different ways to access knowledge. Besides, although much has been researched about teaching reading in English (RAMOS, 2004; BAMBIRRA, 2007; VIAN JR., 2009) and, on the other hand, on how to teach reading images (SARDELICH, 2006: OLIVEIRA, 2006), there are few works that encompass critical reading in foreign languages integrating the verbal and the visual aspects in the production of meanings. To investigate the linguistic and visual choices and their relationship, which is responsible for the messages to be negotiated with the reader, seventeen texts were studied, which were divided into four groups of multimodal genres: five magazine articles, three movie reviews, five comic strips and four print advertisements. They have been examined separately through some of the following categories within the three metafunctions: ideational, mainly through the analysis of Processes (HALLIDAY & MATTHIESSEN, 2004; KRESS & VAN LEEUWEN, 2006) and the Representation of Social Actors (VAN LEEUWEN, 1997 e 2008); interpersonal, by the Appraisal Theory (MARTIN e WHITE, 2005) and the visual instances of Contact, Social Distance and Attitude (KRESS & VAN LEEUWEN, 2006); textual, only in the images, regarding Salience, Informational Value and Framing (KRESS & VAN LEEUWEN, 2006). From the description and discussion of the results of the analysis in each genre, I suggest some activities to exemplify how to implement the principles of LSF in the school context. The construction of activities was based on Ramos article (2004) about the use of genres at school. Therefore, the work with the corpora was divided into three moments, using each genre at a time: 1) description of the genre in its situational context and some comments on its cultural context; 2) analysis of the corpus applying the LSF and 3) exemplification of activities made from the analysis. Results have pointed to the complementation between visual and verbal elements in the construction of meanings and the theoretical-analytical framework used has proven to be a generous starting point for the development of critical reading activities