THE ROLE OF THE GRAMMAR ON PORTUGUESE TEXTBOOKS: A LOOK ON TEACHING OF RELATIVE CLAUSE

Abstract

This paper studies how the textbooks of Portuguese Language of Secondary School, approved by the Programa Nacional do Livro Didático-2014, approach the teaching of grammar, in particular as regards the treatment of the relative subordinate clause. For this, first we start with the comparison between the proposals manuals for teaching grammar and what was accomplished in the student book. Furthermore, we propose here an interface between the results of the analysis of textbooks and functional description of the relative clause. In other words, we try to verify as some descriptive aspects can be used in the teaching of relative clause, with the aim of developing reading and writing skills. In order to do that, we take as theoretical framework the different conceptions of grammar proposed in Travaglia (2009, 2011) and Functional Discourse Grammar (HENGEVELD; MACKENZIE, 2008). This research points to the need to emphasize the cohesive role established by the relative pronoun that introduces the relative clause, to understand the non-restrictive relative clause from its argumentative function and to review the distinction between subtypes of adjective clause from the criteria of omission of the subordinate clause.

Keywords

• Grammar teaching
• Textbooks analysis
• Functionalism