09-18-2024
The Portuguese language has gained significant importance as a subject of educational, methodological, and scientific endeavours, leading to a consequent rise in conferences and seminars held outside of Brazil and Portugal that specifically address this language. Within the field of Linguistics, Portuguese, in its European and Brazilian variations, has emerged as one of the most extensively researched "understudied" languages in comparative linguistics.
A cursory examination of Linguist List 3 reveals a growing proliferation of journals, publications, and events specifically focused on the research of the Portuguese language and the distribution of its findings. Furthermore, Portuguese as an Additional Language has emerged as a feasible field for educational practices and research within and outside Portuguese-speaking nations.
Private institutions have also seen an exponential increase in Portuguese language programs designed for overseas students. Moreover, informal language schools, a ubiquitous presence across Brazil, which have long prioritised English, have recently been increasing their offerings of Portuguese classes for foreigners, sometimes entirely to meet demand. To teach Portuguese online (for example, https://livexp.com/skills/portuguese) is so popular in 2024. This is a convenient option for immigrants, as they do not have to travel anywhere to attend classes and can study online at home.
Presently, there exists a single government-accredited proficiency examination for Brazilian Portuguese. This exam has been developed by the Ministry of Education and the Anísio Teixeira National Institute for Educational Studies and Research. Its purpose is to assess the level of proficiency in Portuguese. Companies and higher education institutions accept the proficiency certificate in Portuguese for foreigners as evidence of competence in the language. In Brazil, universities require this certificate for admission into undergraduate and graduate programs (MEC/INEP 2013).
With the growing interest in cultural, social, and educational programs in Brazil and internationally, teaching other languages in the academic setting has been expanding in recent years, including the research in this area. Therefore, Brazilian higher education institutions have actively dedicated to developing and distributing supplementary language courses, mainly for English and Portuguese, to facilitate globalisation.
In light of these modifications, the instruction and acquisition of these languages must become more tailored to the particular objectives for which the language will be used. This specialisation has been noted in the teaching of English, which is in worldwide demand and caters to many settings.
To comprehensively address the difficulties non-native speakers encounter in academic settings, it is essential first to establish the unique characteristics of languages in educational environments. Firstly, distinct from written academic English, written academic Portuguese can be described as "more semantically rich, nuanced, flexible, and capable of expressing subjectivity and sentiment (or as excessively complex, elaborate, long winded, and subjective)." Bennett presents a corpus analysis that characterises academic Portuguese by examining a range of identifiable discourse traits, including using gerunds and sentences without verbs, among other language devices.
Copyright 2024. Turner Research & Strategy, Inc. All rights reserved.