Com a fala, as crianças! Narrativas espontâneas em contexto da educação infantil.

Abstract

The general aim of the research that led to this paper is to analyze the spontaneous oral narratives of three-year-old children in a public early childhood education institution. It also has the specific objectives of identifying the themes present in the children's narratives; analyzing the circumstances in which the narratives are produced and identifying the basic elements of the narrative, such as the sequence of facts, characters, time and space. The research problem driving the study is as follows: How are the spontaneous narratives of children in the early stages of Early Childhood Education characterized? Thus, the study takes children's oral narratives as the unit of analysis, understanding them as a social construction and practice that contributes as a mobilizing action for language development, impacting on integral development. Our basic theoretical framework lies within the scope of socio-interactionist theories, mainly in the research of Vygotsky (2009, 2000a, 2000b) and Tomasello (2019), who focus on psychological development and language acquisition in childhood. Other scholars, including Bruner (1997, 1998, 2000), Dolz (2004), Perroni (1983) and François (2009), help us to understand the structure and importance of this genre as an instrument of great relevance for oral language development. This is a qualitative investigation and, in this sense, the methodology followed the principles of this type of research. The field research was carried out in a class with children aged around three years old, in an Early Childhood Education institution belonging to the municipal public network of Santa Cruz do Capibaribe-PE. Participant observations were made, recorded on audio, video and in a field diary. The scenes recomposed through this material and the confrontation with the theoretical framework resulted in the composition of interaction episodes between the pairs and the researcher, which could be treated, making it possible to define two categories of analysis: a) the structure and elements of the children's narratives; b) the situations and themes of the factual narratives. In conclusion, the data indicates that the age of the children is not a predictive factor for the category of the spontaneous narrative genre, especially in relation to the sequencing of events. Their narratives do not follow traditional structures, but have a unique organization that combines diverse elements (the fact, the time sequence, the setting, the sequence of events, and the narrative focus), transcending linguistic markers and reinforcing their lived experiences. Children's spontaneous narratives, therefore, represent a phenomenon always under construction, dependent on cognitive operations, interactive relationships, as well as textual speech patterns, symbolisms rooted in culture and language, accessible through involvement with others in culturally organized activities.