UM OLHAR PARA A INTERFERÊNCIA DOS HETEROSSEMÂNTICOS NA APRENDIZAGEM DO ESPANHOL POR FALANTES NATIVOS DE PORTUGUÊS BRASILEIRO: UM ESTUDO DE CASO

Abstract

This research investigates the interference of the learner's mother tongue on the learning of a foreign language. By means of the Contrastive Analysis (CA), the influence of Portuguese-Spanish false cognate pairs in students language learning is examined. The aim of this study is, more specifically, to categorize the most recurrent false cognates in the samples analyzed, according to the level of interference in learning. The present study also aims at detecting evidences of homoiophobia in the learning of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese, in Brazil. In addition to these objectives, there are two main questions which guide this research: 1) to what extent do false cognates induce to semantic mistakes which hinder or suppress the learning of SFL by native speakers of Brazilian Portuguese? and 2) to what extent can false cognates produce homoiophobia during the process of learning SFL? . With this in mind, bibliographical research was conducted in order to survey previous studies on the linguistic proximity between Portuguese and Spanish. Besides that, bibliographical research concerning CA and Error Analysis (EA) was carried out for the purpose of pointing out the relevance of these models for the study of a foreign language. Also discussed were the previous research about the didactic relevance of the CA and the concepts of error and fossilization. Furthermore, a review as regards the concepts of transference and interference is presented, as well as issues concerning false cognates and homoiophobia . This research is a case study that involves four senior high school students from a private school in Santiago city, state of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. The methodology is based on data collection by means of: 1) a preliminary questionnaire; 2) versions of texts; 3) translations of texts; 4) translations of sentences; 5) translations of words; 6) interviews; and 7) notes taken by the researcher. From the results, it follows that the incorrect usage of false cognates shows students tendency to silence during the process of learning SFL. These results indicate that the implementation of specific and appropriate teaching methods to deal with similarities and differences between languages should be enhanced. It is necessary to invest in such teaching methods based on the CA, for the purpose of helping students to raise awareness of these similarities and differences