Portuguese language classroom: in the fabric of the enunciative mismatch between teacher and student

Abstract

The starting point of this article is the theoretical work of Benveniste (1958, 1968, 1970), and we are going to focus in the classroom from an enunciative perspective. Differently from some theoretical models contending that the teacher-student(s) discursive relation is totalizing and complete, we are going to demonstrate theoretic-analytically that the spoken enunciations between them generate a constitutive dismantling. Therefore, conceiving the classroom as a discursive instance, we will show that such instance features as a place of continuous (re)creation of sets of knowledge. These sets of knowledge are not previously present, being necessary for the teacher to (re)invent them. And that (re)invention, given its enunciative nature, happens in singular spatial and temporal mo(ve)ments. Besides, the effects of spoken enunciations that the teacher brings to the student(s), and vice-versa, are neither controllable nor predictable. These effects end up by exposing the teacher to a complex relation with his/her object of work, in this case, the Portuguese Language. From two Enunciative Scenes, we will show that the teacher discursive-enunciative position is highlighted, in a way that the teacher engages in approaching the text by elaborating the reading and interpretation mo(ve)ments from association between sets of knowledge. The teacher produces fiction with the text, since he builds different scenarios for his/her approach.