O uso de advérbios intensificadores na escrita de aprendizes brasileiros de inglês como L2: um estudo baseado em corpus

Abstract

This research aims to empirically analyze the use of degree adverbs in the writing of Brazilian learners of English as a second language (L2). To this end, data from Br-ICLE, the Brazilian subcorpus of the International Corpus of Learner English (ICLE), which contains 206.075 words, were used as a sample of Brazilian learners writing. Similarly, the native speaker corpus LOCNESS, Louvain Corpus of Native English Essays (LOCNESS) with 326.838 words, was used as a comparable corpus to our corpus study. Two other corpora, namely MICUSP, The Michigan Corpus of Upper-level Student Papers and BNC, British National Corpus, were used as reference corpora to highlight the results obtained from the Brazilian corpus. The log-likelihood test was used to indicate which forms had a difference in use which was statistically significant in both corpora. After running the test and analyzing the data, we could observe that in relation to native speakers, Brazilian learners make greater use of amplifying adverbs and less use of downtoning. The data also pointed to the fact that Brazilian learners tended to make a greater use of forms that are more recurrent in oral language, revealing therefore informal characteristics of these learners writings. Finally, although there was a greater quantitative use of amplification of certain forms studied in this thesis by Brazilian learners when the data was qualitatively analyzed, this data showed a similar trend in the use of degree adverbs by native speakers (LOCNESS) and learners (Br-ICLE). Both corpora carried therefore greater amplification than mitigation and a great use of forms present in informal oral discourse. These results may suggest that both native speakers (LOCNESS) and learners (Br-ICLE), are producing an inexperienced writing which is not fully adequate to the university context in which these informants are inserted.