A UTILIZAÇÃO DE HISTÓRIAS EM QUADRINHOS NA COMPREENSÃO EM LEITURA

Abstract

Language acquisition can be seen as a natural learning process when one has significant contact with it (LIGHTBOWN; SPADA, 2006; KRASHEN, 1985). In the process of learning foreign languages (L2), it is important to encourage learners to have interactions in the target language. A practical form of interaction – as it can be practiced in any environment and without the presence of other speakers – is reading. However, for the novice reader, reading exclusively verbal texts requires great effort due to their inexperience with the syntax of the language and the reduced lexicon (PICCOLO; SALLES, 2013). One possibility to facilitate the reading process would be the use of multimodal texts, which convey part of the intended meaning through images. This is corroborated by the fact that narrations using images have existed since ancient civilizations with the aim of reaching wider audiences than just the literate one (FEIJÓ, 1997). A contemporary textual genre that fits this description is the comics, an artistic/literary form that deals with the arrangement of images and words to narrate stories (EISNER, 1989). Faced with this scenario, there was an interest in investigating whether this genre has characteristics that somehow help the learning and development of reading by readers who are not proficient in English (L2), providing relief from the slowness and difficulty of reading and thus promoting favorable conditions for its practice to intensify. From this initial interest, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze research that investigates the reading comprehension of comics by learners of English as L2. To achieve this objective, scientific studies related to this theme were mapped, using national and international electronic journals as sources of research, stratified between A1 and B2 by QUALIS 2013-2016. For this mapping, the Periódicos CAPES database was used. A corpus of five scientific articles was built. The articles deal with different contexts, but all related to the school environment. The articles were analyzed according to the Content Analysis, as proposed by Bardin (2016). Systematization and analysis of data revealed important information, such as the importance of illustration that exceeded the motivation for reading based exclusively on aesthetics. The readers of the studies analyzed, considered images as an important part in understanding the narrative presentation, being used, for example, as facilitators for the use of reading strategies, such as inferencing, for the recall of a text and for the search for specific information in the text. However, the finding of possible benefits was not seen as a supposed justification for replacing prose with multimodal texts, but rather, because comics can bring benefits to the learner of English as L2, since it is an addition to the list of significant reading materials.