The (not) place of phonetics and phonology in Brazilian textbooks of elementary school final years

Abstract

Taking into account the importance of Phonetics and Phonology in reflecting on language and broadening linguistic knowledge of the student's basic education; the highlight of didactic books in classrooms and the fact that, traditionally, these areas have been poorly represented in Portuguese curricula, this work focuses on analyzing how much Phonetics  and Phonology are covered by Brazilian didactic books. This study was based on the works of Cagliari (2009), Camara Jr. (2011), Faraco (2012), among others, and our findings reveal that, in such analyzed books, the contents of Phonetics and Phonology are treated superficially and restrictively; the variation, which is limited to the social, regional and lexical levels, is approached as just a Portuguese Language content and doesn't mainstream the linguistic analysis level; essential contents are missing not just to the full understanding of some subjects brought to life by books, but to the knowledge, by students, of the way the Phonetics and Phonology of their  own mother tongue, which brings out different types of damage to their linguistic formation.