Thinking about spoken and written language acquisition: the case of variation in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This paper once more addresses the issue of an internalized grammar through the analysis of spoken child language in what concerns the expression of grammatical subjects. Such analysis attempts to show evidence that from a very early age children are sensitive to rather subtle grammatical rules, and come to respect in a precise way the grammatical restrictions of the adult grammar as development unfolds. These facts are taken as especially relevant in what concerns rules which differ in the spoken and written varieties of Brazilian Portuguese. In such cases, the acquisition of literacy skills will put the child in contact with new grammar rules. In order to make the discussion clear, Brazilian children data are compared to Portuguese children spoken data. Such contrast shows that from the very early uses, in the case of Portuguese children, spoken discourse is comparable to written discourse, and that is not true for the spoken discourse of Brazilian children. Taking these facts into account it is argued that literate discourse activities at school will be of fundamental importance for the acquisition of written Brazilian Portuguese, once such social and discursive activity was the only context necessary for the acquisition of the rules of spoken language, which was not explicitly taught by adults to the infant and toddler.

Key words: language acquisition, internalized grammar, pronominal subjects.