Literacies in Portuguese and English in Brazilian Higher Education: Landmarks and Perspectives

Abstract

This project aims at contributing to the project called Initiatives of reading and writing in Higher Education (ILEES) in Latin America, whose objective was to identify and describe the initiatives of teaching and research in reading and writing in higher education in Brazil. In this article, we aim at covering the second stage of the research by identifying the writing centers and analyzing the interviews with the researchers mostly cited as references or those considered responsible for gathering research groups and/or literacy projects in different state and federal universities in the country. For our analyses, we use Bronckart's (2008) and Bulea's (2010) methodological framework in order to recognize, in the interviews, the themes (thematic organization segment - SOT) and how the interviewees (E) develop such themes in their discourse through the thematic treatment segments (STT). The results show five writing centers regarding academic reading and writing in the national context. The interviews emphasize theoretical frameworks towards literacy and recognize the lack of initiatives in different Brazilian universities and, regarding sustainability, enlargement, strengthening and recognition are urgent needs, according to our interviewees.

Keywords:
Literacy; Academic Literacy; Reading and Writing in Higher Education