Editor's Note
Dear Readers,
It is a pleasure to bring you RBLA 8:1. In this number you will find nine articles and one book review. The articles were put together in such a way that we have two main thematic strings: the first is linguistic analysis and the second, language teaching and learning. Opening the linguistic analysis contributions, the first article, by Daniel do Nascimento e Silva, discusses identity from a Pragmatic standpoint. In order to do that, the author outlines a "performative view of identity" employing an Austinian perspective in his analytical support.
The second article, by Rodrigo Esteves de Lima-Lopes, focuses on relational processes in advertisement letters through a corpus analysis methodology. Systemic-Functional Grammar is the theoretical framework adopted to describe the interactions among the business that sends the letter, the consumer and the product being advertised.
The third article, by Viviane de Melo Resende, discusses the naturalization of contemporary misery by analyzing the report of an apartment building tenants' meeting. The framework adopted is Critical Discourse Analysis through which the author claims the incorporation of hegemonic discourses and the erasing of basic social rights in contemporary Brazilian society.
The second thematic string, language teaching and learning, starts with the forth article, by Simone Reis and Débora Rebouças Milani Cecci. The authors report the results of research focusing on the emergent meanings reached at through the analysis of teacher educators' beliefs. The discussion is developed taking into consideration the notions of cognition versus situated cognition revealing a bipartite tendency among teacher educators' cognitive tendencies.
The fifth article, by Tatianne Carréra Szundy and Vera Lúcia Lopes Cristóvão introduces research developed with EFL Teaching Practice students from two Brazilian universities. The research goal was to connect the theoretical and methodological principles presented in class and the development of teaching materials applicable to high school ESP classes.
In the sixth article Vilson J. Leffa addresses the break between theory and practice in language teaching. He examines different exercises proposed in textbooks written by EFL theoreticians. Leffa concludes that when theoreticians walk in teachers' shoes their language gets closer to that of the teachers', implying that a dialogue between the two groups is indeed possible.
In the seventh article, Vanessa de Assis Araújo focuses on group processes in the EFL classroom. The author discusses learners' perceptions of group processes, the influence a group has on the learning process of its members and the perception learners have of what a facilitating group is.
In their article, the eighth in this volume, Marcos Baltar, Maria Eugênia T. Gastaldello, Marina A. Camelo and Bárbara M. Lipp discuss the implementation of School Radio Stations in public schools in the surrounds of the University of Caxias do Sul. The authors point out that the objective of the investigation was to verify the potential of School Radio Stations as an instrument in socio-discursive interaction and as a stimulus to social protagonism in the school scenario.
The last article, the ninth, by Rafael Vetromille-Castro, reports on the observation of teachers' groups in an online course through theories that treat groups as complex systems. The author indicates constitutive elements in interactive behavior as well as those that foster the maintenance of groups.
A book review, by John Robert Schmitz, closes this volume. The author draws a historical view of the development of Applied Linguistics through his analysis of the book Por uma Lingüística Aplicada Interdisciplinar. Schmitz runs through the chapters of the book pointing out, discussing and many times, refuting, the premises assumed by their authors. Schmitz, despite criticizing the book, recommends it to be read by applied linguists, graduate students in Applied Linguistics, and by professionals from the areas from which concepts are borrowed and incorporated into the chapters of the book.
We invite our readers to submit papers to our upcoming thematic issues, which will be Grammar in Language Teaching and Language Acquisition (2009) and Research on Identity (2010). The deadline for submissions is March of each year.
We hope you enjoy your reading!
Heliana Mello
Publication Dates
-
Publication in this collection
16 Apr 2013 -
Date of issue
2008
