O uso de “lexical bundles” da oralidade para o ensino de inglês : uma sistematização baseada em córpus para crianças não alfabetizadas

Abstract

This research explores lexical bundles in English teaching for preliterate children according to the literacy expectations proposed by the National Curricular Base (BNCC). Lexical bundles are fixed lexical sequences that occur frequently in a specific linguistic register. Our theoretical framework draws on works related to Corpus Linguistics, including Biber, Conrad, Cortes (2003), Romer (2008), Biber (2009), Berber Sardinha (2010), and Egbert et al. (2022), and on Interculturality, as approached by Kramsch (2021). Our general objective is to create a comprehensive list of relevant and applicable lexical bundles in the English language classroom, with a concern not only descriptive but also focused on teaching. The specific objective of this study is to identify and analyze the patterns of lexical bundles present in spoken language directed towards children in YouTube videos. To do this, we compiled a corpus consisting of 1,940 texts, totaling 1,722,722 million words. The transcription of the textual content of the videos was carried out through the online platform YouTube Scribe. With the assistance of the software Wordsmith Tools, version 5.0, 2021, we processed the corpus and listed the lexical bundles composed of three and four items. As a result, we identified 135 lexical bundles typical of communication aimed at children, i.e., oral linguistic patterns in different contexts and produced by different interlocutors, such as "what are you", "go to the", "what do you", "one, two, three", and "where are you". These linguistic-statistical evidences have the potential to impact the understanding of language aimed at preliterate children, providing didactic-pedagogical inputs for the teaching of English in early childhood education, exposing children to authentic and recurring linguistic patterns in the language.