THE GENESIS OF COMMAS IN STORIES INVENTED BY NEWLY LITERATE STUDENTS: IDENTIFYING METALINGUISTIC ACTIVITIES BASED ON PUNCTUATION MARKS AND SPONTANEOUS COMMENTS ¹

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes the occurrences of commas and the spontaneous verbalizations during the textual production of invented stories written by two 6-year-old students. Based on the field of study of Textual Genetics, within a linguistic-enunciative approach, six school manuscripts and their respective writing processes were analyzed. The filmic and multimodal recording of these processes preserved the ecological conditions of the classroom. The dialogue between the students, established during the textual production, was taken as a unit of analysis. The occurrences of commas were identified in the school manuscripts and related to what these students said (commented) about these punctuation marks. The results show that the comma was the most used punctuation mark, but its application occurred in only three manuscripts. Almost all occurrences were “remembered” after writing the invented story, complemented with comments indicating a “graphic-spatial” understanding for its use. However, their occurrences in the last manuscript produced indicate the beginning of a “linguistic” conception, when the position of the comma competes with the full stop, commencing to delimit semantic units. And its application is also anticipated by the students, which takes place during the linearization process. These two conceptions are correlated in the same manuscript, suggesting that the genesis of the comma goes through a “hybrid use” function.

text production; collaborative writing; dialogue; learning; punctuation. metalinguistic knowledge