LA INTEGRACIÓN DE LA MATEMÁTICA Y EL INGLÉS EN EL CONTEXTO UNIVERSITARIO: COMPONENTES DE UNA DIDÁCTICA

El presente trabajo aporta algunos componentes para una didáctica de procesos e indicadores para la integración de la matemática y el inglés en el ámbito universitario camagüeyano, a partir de las interacciones discursivas necesarias para la inserción paulatina en la actividad de aprendizaje matemático y lengua extranjera. La implementación de esta secuencia arrojó como primer resultado una caracterización inicial de la actividad de aprendizaje integrado con tendencia a la progresiva enculturación matemática con y desde la lengua extranjera.PALABRAS CLAVE: didáctica; procesos e indicadores; integración matemática y la lengua extranjera; interacciones discursivas; enculturación matemática THE INTEGRATION OF MATHEMATICS AND THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: COMPONENTS FOR A DIDACTICSABSTRACTThe present paper offers some components for some didactics, involving processes and indicators to integrate mathematics and the English language in Camaguey University, considering discourse interactions needed for the gradually insertion to learning activity of mathematics and foreign language. The implementation of the didactic sequence produced an initial characterization of the integrated learning activity with tendency to a mathematical enculturation, using the foreign language.KEYWORDS: didactics; processes and indicators; mathematical and foreign language integration; discursive interactions; mathematical enculturation

Discourse management gestures

Gestures that are used by interlocutors to manage the gist of their ‘discourse interactions’, namely content exchange and floor taking, can have one of two very different pragmatic functions: to signal inclusion and cooperation in friendly conversation, or to establish control in more argumentative conversation. While inclusive-cooperative gestures have been extensively studied (e.g., Bavelas, Chovil, Lavrie, & Wade, 1992; Kendon, 1995; Müller, 2004; Sweetser, 1998), control gestures received little attention (although see Kendon, 1995, 2004) until a recent spark of interest in their form and function (e.g., Calbris, 2011; Müller, 2017; Wehling, 2010, 2012, 2013). However, even though research has detailed important aspects of such discourse managing gestures, to date no comprehensive account of their conceptual foundations and pragmatic functions exists. The present paper fills this gap in the literature. Building on prior analyses of control gestures in argumentative discourse (e.g., Wehling, 2010) and inclusive-cooperative gestures in friendly conversation (e.g., Bavelas et al., 1992; Müller, 2004), it details a typology of discourse management gestures that distinguishes inclusive-cooperative and control gestures as separate pragmatic types and accounts for their forms and functions in terms of their conceptual foundations in primary metaphoric, space-motion schematic, and force dynamic reasoning.

Reports in Discourse

Attitude or speech reports in English with a non-parenthetical syntax sometimes give rise to interpretations in which the embedded clause, e.g., "John was out of town" in the report "Jill said that John was out of town", seems to convey the main point of the utterance while the attribution predicate, e.g., "Jillsaid that", merely plays an evidential or source-providing role (Urmson, 1952). Simons (2007) posits that parenthetical readings arise from the interaction between the report and the preceding discourse context, rather than from the syntax or semantics of the reports involved. However, no account of these discourse interactions has been developed in formal semantics. Research on parenthetical reports within frameworks of rhetorical structure has yielded hypotheses about the discourse interactions of parenthetical reports, but these hypotheses are not semantically sound. The goal of this paper is to unify and extend work in semantics and discourse structure to develop a formal, discourse-based account of parenthetical reports that does not suffer the pitfalls faced by current proposals in rhetorical frameworks.

Urban violence in Brazil and the role of the media

This paper reports on analyses of data gathered from discourse interactions of two focus groups of Brazilian university students (n = 11) as they talk about urban violence in Fortaleza, Ceara, Brazil. The analytical procedure follows Cameron et al.’s (2009) metaphor-led discourse analysis which focuses on the role metaphor vehicles play in the emergence of systematic metaphors in discourse. The findings highlight the trivialization of violence in Brazil by the media/TV, evidenced by the emergence in the talk of three related systematic metaphors: violence is a product manufactured by the media, violence is a spreading contagious disease and fear as a response to violence is a form of imprisonment.