Arrangements for temporal reference in texts of pre-university students: literacy and orality

Abstract

This work investigates, from a discursive perspective, temporary arrangements which give form to the textual scheme in editing produced by students exiting from intermediate teaching. The situation of the production of the texts is to be assessed, or more precisely, to be examined at the entrance into São Paulo University and the analysed material consists of dissertations from vestibulars 2006 (270 texts) and 2007 (100 texts). The use of determined time expressions is investigated, such as adverbs and adverbial time expressions, as well as certain noun phrases, whose elements indicate the process of time. There is included, for example, the noun phrase “every time”, accompanied by particular adverbial- argumentatives “more” or “less”, or noun phrases of the type “modern means”, where the adjective imposes a temporal reference. There are also considered time expressions with the verb “to exist” and “to do”. From a theoretical point of view, a notion of text is adopted which allows the observation of the relationship between the pragmatic-enunciative marks of linguistic time and its historic-discursive presentation mode, to know, the temporality mode connected to the different and varied scansions of time in the interior of a same association. One arrives at two results: the first refers to the choice of the more frequent type of arrangement, with remission to a remote time, to an intermediary time and to a present time; the second relates to the choice of the second more frequent time of temporal arrangement of the text, in which the definite character of the text being combined with the testimony of a lived/narrated experience about the theme.