REPRESENTATIONS OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ACQUISITION BY DEAF BRAZILIAN STUDENTS: AN EXPLORATORY AND PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY

Abstract

In this piece of research, we deal with the perceptions of deaf students regarding the acquisition of English as a FL/L3, in Brazil, under an exploratory and phenomenological perspective. We conducted a qualitative study in two public inclusive mainstream schools in the city of Altamira, State of Pará, which had deaf students enrolled in education levels whose curricula included the subject of English. Thus, two deaf participants provided elements, through their discursive sequences, for the composition of the corpus of this study. Data was analyzed from the perspective of interdiscursivity, as well as at the core of social representations, especially with regard to sociodiscursive imaginaries. Through the place of speech provided to the participants, it was possible to perceive the evidence of a critical and conflicting discursive ethos on the part of the students regarding the teaching of English, an oral foreign language for non-hearing students, by positioning themselves about the real (represented by inclusive mainstream education guaranteed by law, that is, the situation in which they find themselves) and the ideal (symbolized by the bilingual teaching approach also legally conquered, but by which they are currently not contemplated).