Estratégias de compreensão de expressões idiomáticas por não nativos do português brasileiro

Abstract

This research general objective was to investigate tactics and strategies of idiomatic comprehension used by 20 Lusophone African university students, from Cape Verde and Guinea-Bissau, non-native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese (BP). For the construction of the research hypotheses, psycholinguistic theories of phraseological processing, such as the ones promoted by Bobrow and Bell (1973), Irujo (1986), Cacciari & Tabossi (1993), Flores d'Arcais (1993), Cooper (1999), Crespo and Caceres (2006) and Detry ( 2010) and, in the phraseological field, Casares (1950) 1969), Gross(1996); Corpas-Pastor (1996), Iñesta Mena and Pamies Pertrán (2002), Mellado Blanco (2004), Montoro Del Arco (2006); García-Page Sánchez (2008); Olza Moreno (2011); Alvarado Ortega (2010) and Luque Nadal (2012). A verbal protocol think aloud through which were carried out three experiments that have contemplated 18 idiomatic expressions of frequent use in Brazil, divided into three phraseological categories was designed from models of experiments developed by psycholinguists was elaborated and applied to the subjects of the research: (1) zoomorphisms; (2) somatics: and (3) Special (botanics, clothins, gastronomic) results of the research have confirmed the hypotheses that expressions designate names of animals (zoomorphisms) and parts of the body (somatics) favored the weak idiomatic expression (transparency) by its semantical analysis or semantical compositionality, except for the mum’s the word (fazer boca de siri) which word siri is not found in the vocabulary of Creole languages (Cape Verdean and Guinean). Between the special expressions, fazer boca de siri was considered opaque since the informants have ignored the meaning given by Brazilians to the expression. It has confirmed a hypothesis that the strategies related to the use of context are the most commonly used by non-natives of PB, to reach at the meaning of the expressions. Among the special expressions, rasgar seda was considered opaque since the informants have ignored the meaning given by Brazilians to the expression. It has confirmed a hypothesis that the strategies related to the use of context are the most commonly used by non-natives of PB, to reach at the meaning of the expressions. The results also indicate that the phraseological processing does not follow a single upward direction (bottom-up) or downward (top-down), but that exist a constant inter-relationship between tactics and strategies in comprehension of idiomatic expressions