Modalidade deôntica nas explicações e nos exercícios nas gramáticas de língua inglesa

Abstract

The Grammar book of the English language is an important material used in the context of learning a foreign language. With this in mind, this research aims at analyzing which approach is used in the sections of explanations and exercises related to modal verbs in English grammars. Six grammars, whose years of publication are 1996, 1999, 2006, 2008, 2009 and 2011, of three renowned publishers that make instructional materials for foreign students of the English language - Oxford, Macmillan, and Pearson Longman- are compared. The appropriateness of the exercises will be verified in relation to the functionalist theory, whose focus is based on use (NEVES, 2015), or to the formalistic theory, that excels the autonomy of the structure in relation to the use of the linguistic structure (LOCK, 1996). The research accounts for the theoretical apparatus of the functionalism (DIK, 1978; GIVÓN, 1995; HALLIDAY, 2004), of the structuralism (SAUSSURE, 1971; CHOMSKY, 1957; BENVENISTE,1989; 1991; LOCK, 1996), of the deontic modality (PALMER, 2001) and of the methods of language teaching (LARSEN-FREEMAN, 2000). As for the methodological procedures, the chapters regarding the modal verbs related to the deontic modality of each one of the six grammars were analyzed. The analysis of each explanatory section and of each section of exercises was made, trying to catch which conception, formalist or functionalist (DIK, 1978), was present. Soon afterwards, we proceeded to the counting of the data and the calculation of the percentages that represent them. As for the explanatory section of the grammars, just one presented an approach more focused on the form (FUCHS & BONNER, 2006), while the other five concentrated their explanations on the linguistic use. With respect to the sections of exercises, four of the grammars (ALEXANDER, 1999; FUCHS & BONNER, 2006; VINCE, 2008; SWAN, WALTER, 2011) had a larger quantity of exercises whose focus was in the structure of the modal verb, without associating it to the communicative aspect. Only two grammars (BLAND, 1996; CONRAD, BIBER, 2009) had an approach concentrated on use in both sections. An amount of 103 explanatory sections and 163 exercises were analyzed. It was noticed that the authors of the six grammar books chosen already indicate signs of the functionalist theory as several aspects that relate to the polysemy of the modal verbs and the specific aspects regarding the use of them (75,72%) are inserted in the explanatory sections. However, in relation to the section of exercises the ones based on form still prevail (62,58%).