Uso dos pronomes pessoais e possessivos da língua inglesa na produção escrita de brasileiros aprendizes de inglês como primeira e segunda língua estrangeira

Abstract

In the last decades, especially in Brazil, there has been a growing interest in learning other foreign languages besides English. This interest has led to research on Multilingualism, which, in turn, has increased the number of studies on the mental processes involved in the acquisition of one or more foreign languages. The purpose of this study was to investigate the similarities and the differences in the process of learning English by Brazilians who had already studied other foreign languages prior to English and by those to whom English was the first foreign language to be studied. This study was based on the studies of: second language acquisition by Swain (1985), Chomsky (1959), Ellis (1975) and Selinker (2008); acquisition of a third or other languages by Cenoz (2001, 2002 and 2008), Jessner (2007) and Hammarberg (1998); Interlanguage by Selinker (1972) and Sharwood (1994); and Linguistic Transference by Odlin (1989), Boechat (2008), Brito (2008) and Corder (1983). The research aimed at identifying and classifying the types of errors made in the use of personal pronouns and possessive adjectives in English by language learners for whom English was their first foreign language and by language learners who had previously studied another foreign language. This quali-quantitative study examined the results obtained from the completion of two different tasks – a controlled multiple-choice task and a written composition – by learners of English at three different proficiency levels – basic (Semester II), pre-intermediate (Semester IV) and intermediate (Semester VI) – in Casa de Cultura Britânica (an outreach program of the Federal University of Ceará), divided into two groups: learners of English as first foreign language and learners of English as a second/third foreign language. For each group (based on the level of proficiency) and sub-group (distinguished by having studied another foreign language prior to English or not), the number and the type of errors made in the completion of the two tasks were analyzed. The results obtained from the multiple-choice task indicate that the percentage of errors decreased from Semester II to Semester VI. The errors made by both groups – the ones that had not studied a foreign language prior to English and the ones that had studied another foreign language prior to English decreased from one semester to another. The comparison of the errors made by the groups that had studied another foreign language prior to English in the three semesters also suggests a decrease in the number of errors made by the groups in relation to years of study. However, the Wilcoxon test comparing the results among the participants of each group in the three semesters demonstrated that the differences are only significant in semester II, which tells us that having a previous foreign language helps in the acquisition of subject and possessive pronouns at the beginning of the learning process, but it is not very significant in the following semesters. Therefore, is not possible to make generalizations of these differences to other groups.The analysis of compositions written by the two groups in the three semesters identified the omission of the subject pronoun as the most frequent error, possibly because of the influence of the learners’ native language, Portuguese, which allows for the ellipsis of the subject of a sentence. The learners in the group that had studied another foreign language prior to English had either studied Spanish or Italian which also permit the ellipsis of the subject. The most frequently omitted pronouns were I, followed by IT, SHE and HE. Insertion errors occurred by inserting the pronoun IT when it was unnecessary. Substitution errors were made in the following situations: exchanging the object pronoun for the subject pronoun, using the possessive adjective in place of the subject pronoun or the object pronoun. Overall results indicate that knowledge of the rules for pronoun use in other languages and familiarity with theprocess of acquiring another language aided learners in the selection and use of grammatical structures. Errors made by the group who had not studied another language prior to English can be attributed to the transference of grammatical structures from the native language to the foreign language being learned, while errors made by those who had studied another foreign language can be the result of the transference of grammatical structures from the previously studied foreign language to the one being learned.