Call for papers in thematic dossiers
Submissions to the thematic dossiers of volume 20 (2022) fo Revista da Abralin are open until September 27, 2022.
Texts must be submitted through the journal’s system, strictly following the rules for manuscript presentation and the template, available in the Submissions.
Revista da Abralin adopts an open review process and, from this volume on, the reviews will be published along with the articles.
Dependency grammar
Editors: Adriana Silvina Pagano (Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais), Jorge Baptista (Universidade do Algarve) & Maria Cláudia de Freitas (Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio)
Dependency grammar is a linguistic approach with a long grammatical tradition, which privileges syntactic-semantic relations between linguistic units in sentences. Dependencies are represented by acyclic graph structures, usually without intermediate (abstract) nodes, and dependencies are the transitions between linguistic units (words).
Despite its long trajectory, dependency grammar has had a moderate impact in European circles, and little impact in North and Latin America. In the case of Brazil, more specifically, it is an approach which is virtually (if not totally) absent in linguistics training courses. Dependency grammar has had a great impact in computational linguistics though, not only for its explanatory power from a theoretical point of view, but also for allowing an efficient and relatively simple processing of complex language structures, including long-distance dependency relations, in the area of natural language processing (NLP). Hence, it has been increasingly used as theoretical support for corpus annotation projects and for the construction of treebanks aimed at parsing tasks, essential in several NLP pipelines. The various issues raised by this approach, both theoretical and technical, and the many different phenomena uncovered by it in the analysis of actual natural language structures require the training of linguists prepared to apply this approach to concrete corpus annotation tasks, to the computation and manipulation of graph structures, with special emphasis on machine learning.
This thematic issue intends to bring together studies centered on dependency grammar, contributing to an in-depth discussion of the potential of this approach, both for theoretical linguistic reflection in general and for the description and comparison of languages, promoting a vision of complementarity and reciprocal integration between linguistics and computational linguistics which may be fruitful for both fields.
Theories and Methods in Folk Linguistics
Editors: Roberto Leiser Baronas (Universidade Federal de São Carlos), Marcelo Rocha Barros Gonçalves (Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso do Sul) & Dennis Preston (Oklahoma State University)
In this dossier, we intend to include articles and essays on studies in Folk Linguistics (NIEDZIELSKI; PRESTON, 2003), on their methodologies, and the different approaches to studying manifestations of language made by non-specialists (PAVEAU, 2020). The linguistic practices carried out by these non-linguists can reveal quite diversified strategies regarding the construction of spontaneous theories about language, aligned or not with the already established formalized theories in a scientific and academic environment. Hoeningswald ([1966] 2022) tried to draw attention to the opposition between scientific and folk knowledge in linguistics and how the comments on language made by common people have always been neglected in the formulation of scientific theories in Linguistics.
In this sense, we intend to discuss some issues related to the state of the art of Folk Linguistics more recently. We started with a particular question for the area of study, namely “who are the non-linguists?” (PAVEAU, 2020, p.28), to observe common speakers in the production of knowledge about the language in this confrontation between scientific and folk. We are interested in knowing “what (and how) are the practices of these non-linguists in working with language?” and “when are these practices put to use by ordinary speakers in real environments of interaction?”. In this way, we intend to establish at least three axes of studies in Folk linguistics: the forms and domains of folk linguistics, validity, legitimacy, and the (im)possible dialogues of spontaneous theories with other knowledge, and, finally, the axis of the implications of Folk Linguistics for the teaching of native and foreign languages.
From phonetics studies to oral language teaching: a multidimensional perspective
Editors: Monique Leite Araújo (Universidade de Brasília) & Sara Recio Pineda (Universitat de Barcelona)
Over the last few years, studies addressing the analysis of spontaneous speech have experienced a rapid increase, both in quantity and in quality. From describing phoneme production, to analyzing melodic contours, including the analysis of different dimensions of the prosody, and the adjustment of didactic models of pronunciation in the field of oral language teaching, the phonetics of spontaneous speech can be approached from varied perspectives.
This dossier is meant to be a space for exchange and interaction in the dissemination of theoretical reflections, research results, and innovation proposals concerning spontaneous speech. Thus, we expect that researchers who approach the analysis and the teaching of phonetics and phonology from different perspectives can boost their interests to get a broader view of the phenomena.
The research that will be collected here will account for the latest findings in: a) acoustic analysis (vocalism and consonantism) of spontaneous speech in different languages, b) melodic analysis (pre-linguistic, linguistic, and paralinguistic intonation), c) prosodic analysis (which focuses on the melodic, rhythmic, and dynamic patterns of utterances), and d) didactic proposals to deal with the most relevant aspects of pronunciation in different teaching-learning contexts.
In conclusion, the dossier will point out the efforts of researchers to observe the phonetics of spontaneous speech from a multidimensional perspective as well as to show the applications of experimental studies in the generation of didactic models of pronunciation that can fit different learner profiles.
Rethinking Critical Language Education and BNCC: Discussions and Practices
Editors: Kleber Aparecido da Silva (Universidade de Brasília), Brian David Morgan (University of York) & Walkyria Monte Mor (Universidade de São Paulo)
The central objective of this special issue is to present studies and critical and/or decolonial reflections on the Brazilian National Core Curriculum-BNCC (Original title in Portuguese: Base Nacional Comum Curricular), mainly from the view(s) of Critical Applied Linguistics and Critical Education (SILVA; JORDÃO, 2021; SOUZA, 2021, 2019; RAJAGOPALAN, 2020, 2019; JORDÃO, 2019; PENNYCOOK; MAKONI, 2019; JORDÃO; MARTINEZ; MONTE MOR, 2018; MONTE MOR; MORGAN, 2014; DUBOC; FERRAZ, 2018; FREIRE, 1987; 1980 [2001]).
To this end, it will be organized around the following axes: i) Ethnographies of Language Policies in Brazil: Critical discussions of the specificities of language policy in Brazil that reflect a “(neo)colonial matrix of power” (SANTOS, 2014): i.e., based on Northern/Metropole/Eurocentric theories, knowledge systems and epistemologies; ii) Language Policy and Planning (LPP): Critical analyses of LPP initiatives that reflect neoliberal, economic oppression and dependencies (e.g., Native-speakerism, standard language ideologies, monolingualism; political economy of global publishing via English journals & international rankings); iii) LPP underpinnings (i.e., language and literacy ideologies; SLA, curricula) that contribute to inequalities and hierarchies based on race, gender, sexuality (see e.g., raciolinguistics); iv) Language Policy Enactments (see e.g., RAMANATHAN; MORGAN, 2007): localized teacher agency in mediating or resisting policies. We hope that submissions to this thematic dossier extend and advance our understanding of the BNCC in support of effective critical language education.