Estratégias de compreensão leitora em português brasileiro e em inglês como segunda língua : um estudo comparativo sobre transferência lingüística no âmbito da metacognição.

Abstract

Metacognition, self-monitoring of any cognitive enterprise (FLAVELL, 1981) and linguistic transfer, the transposition of knowledge from a firstly acquired language by the learner to his/her performance in the target language, are phenomena expressed on reading comprehension. Considering this, this dissertation aims to develop a theoretical and an empirical alliance among metacognition, linguistic transfer and reading comprehension, by investigating the transfer of metacognitive reading strategies between Brazilian Portuguese and English as a second language. It aims to verify types and frequency of metacognitive reading strategies use in L1 and L2 in two university courses with different formation backgrounds, besides of observing the possible manifestation of the linguistic transfer phenomenon on metacognitive reading strategies. This research was divided in two steps Initially, a literature review on the main topics of the dissertation has been developed.Following, an empirical study has been implemented with 16 university students of a Language and Literature course and with 16 Business students, both groups with proficiency in English of 50% in the reading part of a sample of TOEIC. The participants solved a reading comprehension test in Portuguese and English on the computer through a retrospective written protocol. After that, the metacognitive reading strategies used were classified through an adaptation of the taxonomy of Filho (2002), Joly, Cantalice e Vendramini (2004), Joly, Santos, Marini (2006) and Joly (2007). Accuracy on multiple-choice questions was computed and the levels of the summaries produced were analyzed through Carrell´s (1992) taxonomy. Data were analyzed quantitative and qualitatively in an inter- and intragroups analysis. The inter-groups analysis indicated a considerable padronization in type and frequency of metacognitive reading strategies used in the instruments. The main difference was in the main access to previous knowledge in both instruments by the Language and Literature group in relation to the Business group. The Language and Literature course students used more metacognitive reading comprehension strategies in relation to the Business ones in both instruments, in Brazilian Portuguese (L1) and in English (L2) Moreover, there was a partial occurrence of metacognitive reading strategies transfer in Brazilian Portuguese and in reading comprehension in English and vice-versa. The homogeneity on type and frequency of use of reading strategies may indicate the presence of transfer of metacognitive reading strategies in an unconscious level or the existence of common reading procedures used by speakers of different languages and with different academic background, along with possible cognitive patterns on this activity.