Elementos coesivos do português brasileiro em córpus de redações nos moldes do Enem: um estudo para a elaboração da CoTex

Abstract

This research develops our previous study about cohesive devices and provides a linguistic basis for the creation of an online tool called Conte Comigo para Coesão Textual (CoTex), which is of a lexicographical and pedagogical nature and aimed at the writing of essays by senior high school students in Brazil. Drawing on theoretical contributions by authors such as Halliday and Hasan (1995), Antunes (2005) and Koch (2008), we discuss the main theme of textual cohesion, and present a proposal of reorganization of the classification of cohesive phenomena. Different kinds of teaching – prescriptive, descriptive, productive – are also expounded based on Halliday, McIntosh and Strevens (1974) and Travaglia (2009). This theoretical framework has supported us in the production of activities on textual cohesion, which are present in CoTex. We approach the issue of new technologies in teaching by means of Kenski (2003) and Ribeiro (2012), and elaborate on Corpus Linguistics and Computational Linguistics having Mello and Souza (2012), Finatto, Lopes and Ciulla (2015) and Assunção e Araújo (2019) as guiding studies. This theoretical basis has contributed to the reflection on the importance of creating CoTex in digital format and on the affordances of such an environment. In methodological terms, we have followed Corpus Linguistics principles and used the lexical analysis software WordSmith Tools, version 7, Scott (2016), which are essential in the process of analyzing CorRed, a corpus that comprises 2.325 essays, whose compilation began in our Master’s research, as can be seen in Grama (2016), and finished in this doctoral dissertation. CorRed was essential for the development of CoTex. We found more than 500 cohesive devices out of the analysis and description of said corpus, which was used to obtain information (definition, frequency of use, examples of use, synonyms etc.) for writing the lexicographical records of 30 cohesive devices which compose the nomenclature of CoTex. Thus, CoTex is both semasiological and onomasiological in orientation with ludic and guiding sentences depending on the user’s searches. It also provides immediate feedback about the activities, among other features. Concerning the results, we can say we have answered our research questions and satisfactorily accomplished the goal of developing CoTex, presenting it to high school teachers – essential agents in the educational setting – and obtaining their assessment of our online tool.