Our aim is to demonstrate the results of an investigation about the representations of the Portuguese language professor's role which are built by the undergraduate students of a Language Course in their last university year. The possible outcomes of these representations were discussed based on how this language has been taught and socially represented in the country. The theoretical cut of this research was nurtered by a social, historical and ideological approach of language, according to Bakhtin/Volochínov (1995) and Bakhtin (2003). The data analysis was supported by the study of signs (GINZBURG, 1998), to start the tracking and the interpretation of those representations and their clues. The results point to two predominant types of representations of the content-repassing teacher and of the content-repassing teacher with projection to an investigative-teacher.
Portuguese language teacher; teaching and learning Portuguese; social representations of language
