Linguistic Acceptability

Abstract

This article is about linguistic acceptability, and in this article, linguistic acceptability is treated as a synonym of textual acceptability. This article has as fundamental objective to understand the factors that contribute to the establishment of linguistic acceptability, and to continue this study, the starting question was the following: What are the factors that contribute to the establishment of linguistic acceptability? Therefore, to answer this question, the line of bibliographical research was adopted as a methodology in order to understand the different perspectives linked to this theme in order to understand and comprehend the determining conditions that contribute to textual acceptability in a given communicative event. In this way, it is understood that this article can substantially contribute to raising awareness among potential speakers of a language about the essential criteria that guarantee textual acceptability, but also about its relevance in the language teaching and learning process. Thus, in view of the above, it is concluded that textual acceptability is characterized by the ability of the receiver to attribute a certain meaning to the linguistic sequences produced by his interlocutor, there are several criteria that must be mobilized, relevant for example for linguistic knowledge, sociolinguistic knowledge and pragmatic knowledge, that is, the learner of a given language must simultaneously master linguistic conventions and sociocultural conventions on the use of language within the speaking community.

Introduction

I. INTRODUCTION

Since the beginning of time, communication has played a fundamental role in humanity. The human being has always lived in society and has used communication to relate to his fellow human beings, exchanging different types of information, expressing his moods, beliefs, among other possibilities. Thus, the human being communication, which allows the production and understanding of all types of messages, according to different communicational purposes, requires a plurality of factors to be mobilized by learners/speakers. In order to carry out this diversity of communicational purposes, human beings have at their disposal a wide range of factors that can be linguistic and non-linguistic.

The theme of this article is linguistic acceptability, which fundamentally aims to understand how linguistic acceptability is established in a communicative event, if it is understood that it plays a crucial role in a successful communicative activity. Thus, this article has the following general objective: understanding the factors/criteria that contribute to the establishment of linguistic acceptability. The specific objectives of this study are: (i) to characterize linguistic acceptability; (ii) to identify the criteria that contribute to linguistic acceptability; and (iii) to describe each of the criteria that contribute to guaranteeing linguistic acceptability.

This article has great importance as it will substantially contribute to potential language learners/speakers understanding the essential criteria for a given linguistic sequence/text to be linguistically acceptable, but it will also contribute to raising awareness among those involved in language teaching and learning process about the importance of this topic and the need to take it into consideration in their language lesson plans.

This research, from the point of view of the methodological approach, is qualitative in nature because it is considered that the qualitative approach works with qualitative data expressed in words, that is, this approach does not involve the quantification of the phenomena under study. As for the methodological procedures, it is a bibliographical research because it is characterized by a survey of theoretical references such as books, scientific articles, among others, considered relevant to this theme. It is also important to note that, as for the data collection instruments, observation and interviews were prioritized and as for the data analysis, it was treated qualitatively through content analysis of some linguistic sequences produced orally by the learners and the speaking community.

Regarding the structural organization of this article, it presents the following sections: section I, which is related to the introduction of the research; section II, which addresses the theoretical foundations, highlighting in its subsections: A) the characterization of linguistic acceptability and its importance in the communication domain; B) the factors/criteria of linguistic acceptability in the communication domain also highlighting in its subsections:

1) Linguistic Knowledge; 2) Sociolinguistic Knowledge; 3) Pragmatic Knowledge; C) conversational maxims and their relationship with linguistic acceptability; section III, which deals with aspects related to the methodological foundations of the research; section IV, the analysis and discussion of the results; section V, which presents the final considerations of the study, bringing the final reasoning on the subject under study and advancing with some recommendations considered pertinent for language learners/speakers, but also for the process of teaching and learning the language; and finally, the bibliographical references that served as a basis for consultation for the materialization of this study are presented.

II. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION

A. Linguistic Acceptability

Linguistic acceptability is one of the essential criteria for establishing effective communication and it focuses on the receiver of the message, that is, the message is reproduced by the listener/reader in his/her attitude towards a textual production in which he/she may or may not recognize it, and the receiver must be able to attribute a certain meaning to the message addressed to him/her, otherwise the receiver will not accept it. In this context, it can be deduced that linguistic acceptability is directly linked to the way in which knowledge is organized in the mind of the receiver through syntactic-semantic relations observed from the elaboration of sentences and by those who already know the language.

Therefore, when two people interact, they must make an effort to make themselves understood and try to calculate the meaning of the statement (text) of the interlocutor(s), based on the clues that he/she has and simultaneously activating his/her knowledge of the world, the situation, etc. so that the receiver can establish or construct the meaning of the statement (text). In this sense, knowledge of the world and the context in which the interaction occurs are relevant to establishing linguistic acceptability.

Therefore, it is also important to highlight that linguistic acceptability in terms of its meaning can be seen in two fields or perspectives, as Fávero (1986) argues. In the field of the generative current, linguistic acceptability refers to the linguistic competence that users of natural languages have in generating and creating new sentences, as long as they are in accordance with the rules of grammaticality. On the other hand, in the field of Textual Linguistics, linguistic acceptability refers to the textual competence that users of the language have. Therefore, this article leans towards this last meaning due to the fact that text linguistics has as its object of study the text and no longer the isolated word or phrases and also due to the fact that speakers communicate through texts, the text as a statement or set of related statements that convey a meaning and even more due to the fact that the text is the product or result of several linguistic and non-linguistic factors, that is, aspects related to grammatical rules, lexical aspects, sociocultural aspects, among others.

Therefore, linguistic acceptability, in general, concerns the attitude of the addressee in which a linguistic sequence must constitute a cohesive, coherent and appropriate text, which has some relevance to him through the construction of meaning. It is also important to highlight that linguistic acceptability is directly linked to intentionality, due to the fact that it is directly dependent on the intentions of the speaker, who will use certain linguistic elements to guide the addressee in the acceptance or construction of meaning (FÁVERO, 1986).

Still within the scope of linguistic acceptability, Koch (2003) points out that acceptability refers to the cooperative attitude of the interlocutors, when they agree to "play the game", according to the rules and consider, in principle, the partner's contribution as coherent and adequate to the achievement of the intended objectives. Thus, it can be inferred that linguistic acceptability is the counterpart of intentionality, since it refers to the agreement of the interlocutors, and in this regard, Grice (1975) postulates that communication is governed by the principle of cooperation and, in this sense, refers to the attitude of the interlocutors of accepting the partner's linguistic manifestation as a text that conveys meaning and sense, that has some relevance for them, that is, the author, when producing a statement, has an intention or objective with the reader, and the reader, in turn, strives to comprehend and understand the statement (KOCH, 2015).

From this perspective, the construction of meaning of a given linguistic sequence/text is possible through the Cooperative Principle that is effective among the participants in the communication who, engaged in maintaining the interaction, must follow some principles so that the interpretation of the information conveyed is effective. It should be noted that the aspects related to principles of cooperation, advanced by Grice (1979), will be discussed later because they play a relevant role in establishing linguistic acceptability, as mentioned previously.

B. Factors of Linguistic Acceptability

1) Linguistic Knowledge

Talking about linguistic knowledge is dealing with a very complex topic, as it is a linguistic system of enormous complexity and diversity and no speaker fully masters it, since a language is alive and consequently is always in constant evolution in order to respond to the communicative needs of its users.

Linguistic knowledge refers to the knowledge one has of language, language seen as a code, that is, a set of signs that allow communication and interaction between subjects, and one can only communicate in a language if it is known. In this view, a language has a set of words called lexicon and a set of rules, which is called grammar. Therefore, it is knowledge of formal resources from which one can develop and formulate correct and meaningful messages, as well as the ability to use them (CONSELHO DA EUROPA, 2001).

Therefore, linguistic knowledge deals with the phonetic and phonological, morphological, syntactic and semantic aspects of the language that the speaker or user of the language must mobilize to form words and phrases recognized through their peculiar characteristics of a given language, being, in this perspective, associated with the knowledge of formal resources and the ability to use them to articulate and formulate meaningful and well-formed messages (KOCH, 2003 and 2009).

Within linguistic knowledge, according to the Council of Europe (2001), the following can be considered as competences that embody linguistic content:

1. Grammatical competence can be defined as the knowledge of the grammatical resources of the language and the ability to use them. Therefore, the grammar of a language can be understood as the set of principles that govern the combination of elements in marked and defined meaningful sequences. Grammatical competence is the ability to understand and express meaning, through the production and recognition of sentences and expressions well constructed according to these principles.
2. Lexical competence which consists of the knowledge and ability to use the vocabulary of a language and includes lexical and grammatical elements.
3. Semantic competence is the learner's awareness and control over the organization of meaning and includes (i) lexical semantics, which deals with questions of word meaning; (ii) grammatical semantics, which deals with the meaning of grammatical elements, categories, structures and processes; and (iii) pragmatic semantics, which deals with logical relations such as implication, strict implication, presupposition, etc.
4. Phonological competence that involves the knowledge and ability to perceive and produce:

• The phonological units of the language and their realization in specific contexts;
• The phonetic features that distinguish phonemes from the phonetic composition of words;
• The phonetics of the sentence;
• Phonetic reduction;
• Elision, among others.

• Spelling competence that involves knowledge and the ability to perceive and produce the symbols that make up written texts.
• Orthoepic competence that requires users to read aloud a prepared text, or to use words encountered for the first time in their written form in speech and must be able to pronounce that form correctly, which involves:

• Knowledge of spelling conventions;
• The ability to consult a dictionary and knowledge of the conventions used there to represent pronunciation;
• Knowledge of the implications of written forms, especially punctuation marks for rhythm and intonation;
• The ability to resolve ambiguities (homonyms, syntactic ambiguities, etc.) depending on the context.

Thus, for communication to be effective, linguistic knowledge constitutes one of the essential components, as it serves as a clue for the construction of meaning and sense between interlocutors in a specific communication. However, for this to happen, as can be seen, there are other factors that contribute to this effect.

2) Sociolinguistic Knowledge

Sociolinguistic knowledge refers to the sociocultural conditions of language use. Sensitive to social conventions (rules of good manners, norms governing relations between generations, sexes, classes and social groups, linguistic codification of certain rituals fundamental to the functioning of a community), the sociolinguistic component strongly affects all linguistic communication between representatives of different cultures, although the interlocutors may not be aware of this fact. Therefore, it is a question of skills required to deal with the social dimension of language use, which involves, for example, issues related to linguistic markers of social relations, rules of politeness, expressions of popular wisdom, differences in register, dialects and accents (CONSELHO DA EUROPA, 2001).

The linguistic markers of social relations are evidently different according to languages and cultures, depending on factors such as the relative status of the interlocutors, the closeness of the relationship, the register of the discourse, among others.

• Politeness rules provide one of the most important reasons for a departure from the simple application of the principle of cooperation. They vary from culture to culture and are a frequent cause of interethnic misunderstandings, especially when some politeness expressions are interpreted literally.
• Expressions of folk wisdom that express and reinforce current attitudes contribute significantly to popular culture. They are frequently used or perhaps referred to, or manipulated more frequently by newspaper headlines, for example. The accumulated knowledge of folk wisdom expressed in language, considered as generalized knowledge, is a significant component of the linguistic aspect of sociocultural competence.
• Register differences refer to the systematic differences between linguistic varieties used in different contexts that encompass types of texts, and macrofunctions that involve different levels of formality such as official, formal, neutral, informal, familiar and intimate.
• Dialects and accents reveal the ability to recognize linguistic markers of, for example: social class, regional origin, national origin, ethnic group, professional group. These markers include lexicon, grammar, phonology, vocal characteristics, paralinguistics and body language.

3) Pragmatic Knowledge

Pragmatic knowledge, therefore, refers to the ability to understand, construct and transmit meanings according to the social and cultural circumstances in which communication occurs (ROSE & KASPER, 2001; THOMAS, 1983).

Still on the subject of pragmatic knowledge, the reference document for teaching foreign languages in Europe, the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR), states that pragmatic knowledge concerns the functional use of linguistic resources (production of linguistic functions, speech acts) and creates an argument or a script for interactive exchanges. It also concerns the mastery of discourse, cohesion and coherence, the identification of types and forms of text, irony and parody. In relation to this component, even more than the linguistic component, it is unnecessary to emphasize the strong impact of interactions and the cultural environments in which these skills are constructed.

All categories used here aim to characterize areas and types of skills that the social actor has internalized, that is, the internal representations, mechanisms and capabilities, whose cognitive existence is considered responsible for observable performances and behaviors. At the same time, any learning process will help to develop or transform these same internal representations, mechanisms and capabilities.

Pragmatic knowledge concerns the user/learner's knowledge of the principles according to which messages are:

• Organized, structured and adapted (discursive competence).
• Used to perform communicative functions (functional competence).
• Sequenced according to interactional and transactional schemes (design competence).
• Discursive competence is the ability of the user to organize sentences into sequences, in order to produce coherent speeches. It includes the knowledge and ability to master the organization of sentences in terms of:
• Topic/focus,
• Information given/new information,
• Natural sequence,
• Cause/effect,
• Ability to structure and manage discourse in terms of: cohesion and coherence,
• Logical ordering,
• Style and register,
• Rhetorical effectiveness.

As can be understood, linguistic acceptability constitutes a receptive attitude centered on the interlocutor in relation to the message sent to him/her. Thus, it is necessary that, in order to achieve this linguistic acceptability in the field of communication, the interlocutor must take into account all the factors described above, but must also make efforts based on a cooperative attitude in order to make communication effective. It is in this context that Grice (1975) states that, in a communicative interaction, people establish certain conversational norms that Grice conventionally called conversational maxims.

C. Conversational Maxims and Linguistic Acceptability

To establish the rules governing dialogue, Grice postulates that participants in a communicative interaction make efforts to establish cooperation during the interaction; these efforts are verified; otherwise, there is no communication. Therefore, within the Cooperative Principle, four maxims and their submaxims are postulated, which must be fulfilled for an interaction to be effective. To this end, four maxims are established: maximum of quantity, maximum of quality, maximum of relevance and maximum of manner (GRICE, 1975).

The quantity maxim relates to the amount of information to be provided and the following submaxims correspond to it:

• Make your contribution as informative as required for the current purpose of the conversation.
• Do not make your contribution more informative than is required.

The quality maxim refers to the veracity of the information transmitted and, for its effectiveness, it is necessary to follow the following sub-maxims:

• Do not say what you believe to be false.
• Say nothing except what you can provide adequate evidence for.

The maximum relation is achieved through the following submaxim:

• Be relevant.

And finally, the maxim of manner which refers to how what is said should be said. The submaxims of this maxim are:

• Be clear;
• Avoid obscurity in expression;
• Avoid ambiguity;
• Be brief (avoid unnecessary verbosity);
• Be orderly.

Thus, the four maxims and their respective submaxims were proposed in order to govern an effective interaction. In this case, in order to have an effective interaction, these maxims must be present and/or observed throughout the interaction, and the non- presence and/or observance of these precepts may lead to noise and misunderstandings and break acceptability (ESPÍNDOLA, 2010).

III. METHODOLOGY

This article has chosen a qualitative approach as the approach to achieve the aforementioned objectives, since it is understood that this approach works predominantly with qualitative data, that is, the information collected is not expressed in numbers, but in words. Still on the point of view of the approach of this research, Minayo (2001) states that qualitative research is fundamentally concerned with aspects of reality that cannot be quantified. This approach focuses on understanding and explaining the dynamics of social relations, that is, this qualitative approach works with the universe of meanings, motives, aspirations, beliefs, values and attitudes, which encompasses a deeper space of relations, processes and phenomena that cannot be reduced to the operationalization of variables.

From the point of view of methodological procedures, this article fits into the bibliographic research framework because it starts from a survey of theoretical references such as books, articles, among others that dealt with some aspects considered relevant for the completion of this article. Still in this regard, it is important to mention that any scientific work begins with a bibliographic research that allows the researcher to know what has already been studied on the subject.

Regarding data collection instruments, observation and interviews were preferred, and observation basically uses the ability to observe events that occur around the researcher, directing them towards certain expectations. In this method, the researcher has direct contact with the environment studied and has the possibility of recording information as soon as it occurs. Still regarding data analysis, they were treated qualitatively through content analysis of the linguistic sequences produced by the speaking community.

IV. DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION

Texto 1 (Original Text in Portuguese)        

“(1) O Covid-19 é uma doença que causa o respiratório vírus gripe comuns em algumas pessoas mais grave como a pneumonia. (2) Porém, as suas sintomas é febre e tosse seca, dor de garganta, cabeça e dificuldade em respirar. (3) Podemos prevenir o covid-19 usar sempre a máscara quando estar com pessoas que não vivem contigo, ficar em quarantena, respeitar o distanciamento. (4) Covid pode se transmitir através de gotas de saliva libertada por uma pessoa contaminado quando tosse ou cuspir.”

Text 1 (Translation Text in English)           

“(1) Covid-19 is a disease that causes respiratory flu viruses that are common in some people and more serious, such as pneumonia. (2) However, its symptoms are fever and dry cough, sore throat, headache and difficulty breathing. (3) We can prevent Covid-19 by always wearing a mask when you are with people who do not live with you, staying in quarantine, respecting social distancing. (4) Covid can be transmitted through droplets of saliva released by an infected person when they cough or spit.”

Texto 2 (Original Text in Portuguese)

“(1) Covid-19 contamine-se através de contacto ou viros que pode ocorrer por tocar superfície contaminados, em glomerados onde respiramos ou tocamos a boca, os olhos ou partes do nosso corpo com vírus. (2) Podemos prevenir o contágio covid-19 lavando as mãos com água e sabão ou engenizando com álcool em gelo, usando as máscras e evitar glomeração, evitar tocar e pegar em superfície que não tenhamos certeza nas sua engenelisação.”

Text 2 (Translation Text in English)

“(1) Covid-19 is transmitted through contact or viruses, which can occur by touching contaminated surfaces, in clusters where we breathe or touch our mouth, eyes or parts of our body with viruses. (2) We can prevent Covid-19 contagion by washing our hands with soap and water or rubbing alcohol on ice, using masks and avoiding crowds, avoiding touching and touching surfaces that we are not sure about their contamination.”

Texts 1 and 2 show the following: in text 1, in (2) there is the passage “…as sintomas é …” In this passage there is no agreement in terms of the relationships between the words (syntax), in which the determiner “as” does not agree in gender with the masculine noun in the plural “sintomas” and also, the verbal form “é” does not agree in number with the nominal syntagm “as sintomas”. In (4) there is the construction “… uma pessoa contaminado …”, in this case there is the word “pessoa” which is a noun with the function of the nucleus of the construction, and all the grammatical classes linked to it must maintain the agreement relationships. Another aspect to consider has to do with the correlation between mode and verbal tense, in which in (3) the verbal forms used are not adequate, the learner used the infinitive forms “usar” and “estar” inappropriately.

Still in the same construction, the learner violates the principle of pronoun maintenance, since he began the sentence construction with the first person plural pronoun “nós” in the verbal form “podemos” and throughout the construction he used the pronoun corresponding to the second person singular “...contigo…”, which breaks the sentence logic, thus violating the language norm. Still in (3) we see the use of the word “… quarantena …” which is a graphemematic error because it affects the spelling representation of the word. In this sense and given the problems described above, the learner should have constructed this linguistic sequence as follows: [Text 1: (2) “...os sintomas são …” (3) “Podemos prevenir o covid-19 usando sempre a máscara quando estivermos com pessoas que não vivem connosco”; “... quarentena…” (4) “... uma pessoa contaminada…”].

In textual production 2, it is noted in (1) “...tocar superfície contaminados …” that the learner does not make the adjective “contaminados” agree in number and gender with the nucleus of the nominal syntagm “superfície”. In (1) and (2) there are also morphological errors in which the segmental and/or syllabic structure of the words is altered. The learner also makes errors at the morphological level, those found in (1) “glomerados” and in (2) “engenizado”, “em gelo”, “máscras”, “engenelização”. However, the learner's linguistic sequence should be as follows [Text 2: (1) “...tocar superfície contaminada …”; “a glomerados” (2) “higienizados”; “em gel”; “máscaras”; “higienização”].

In texts 1 and 2, the learners produced texts with enormous linguistic problems, especially in the use of grammatical rules and vocabulary. During their productions, they made errors related to verbal and nominal agreement, vocabulary selection, pronoun placement and also aspects related to the mode-verb temporal correlation. These deviations constitute a violation of the way in which the components of the textual surface, such as the words and phrases that make up a text, should be connected to each other in a linear sequence, through dependence on grammatical order (Koch, 2006).

In this sense, in the learners' textual productions, problems of grammatical dependence were found, with regard to morphological and syntactic aspects, that is, aspects related to the formation of words and aspects inherent to the relations of dependence between these same words that have to do with the aspects of agreement in the combination of words to form sentences and combination of sentences to form a text, thus violating the assumptions or elements that could guarantee the texture so that the meaning and sense of the text can be constructed.

Texto 3 (Original Text in Portuguese)

“(1) A Covit-19 é uma doença muito perigoso e rápido de propagação, é um viro muito perigoso que está espalhado a nível mundial que já matou muitas família e muitas pessoa a nível mundial. (2) A Covit -19 ela se transmite-se de uma pessoa contaminada com o viro. (3) Também se transmite das mão em contato com a pessoa contaminada com o viro.

 (4) Também quando tossiro a um lugar onde estão muitas pessoa o viro é muito fácil para a sua transmissão para a pessoa que estão em redor. (5) Devemos sempre que quando saímos de casa levar contigo a sua máscar; evitar estar em lugar de muitas pessoas sem o uso de máscar; evitar pegar objectos que encontro sem a sua proteção; abrir as portas e as janelas para que o ar entre dentro de casa; não devemos deixar que as crianças brigue na estada.”

Text 3 (Translation Text in English)

“(1) Covid-19 is a very dangerous and fast-spreading disease. It is a very dangerous virus that is spreading worldwide and has already killed many families and many people worldwide. (2) Covid-19 is transmitted from a person infected with the virus. (3) It is also transmitted from hands in contact with a person infected with the virus. (4) Also, when I cough in a place where there are many people, the virus is very easy to transmit to the person around me. (5) We should always wear a mask when we leave the house; avoid being in places with many people without wearing a mask; avoid picking up objects that I find without their protection; open doors and windows to let air into the house; we should not let children fight on the street.”

Texto 4 (Original Text in Portuguese)

“(1) Covid-19 é uma doença muito perigoso e muito contaminado que mata também. (2) Covid-19 é contaminada através de tosse não respiratório e outros então por isso vamos nos prevenir. (3) Qual é a prevenção? A prevenção é lavar sempre as mão com sabão, tomar água quente com limão, não circular muito nos lugares estranhos. (4) Covid-19 mata por isso o meu conselho é vamos nos prevenir nós todos para que nós todos não tenhamos contáminos. (5) Repito vamos prevenir. (6) Covid-19 começou a tingir Moçambique no dia 19 de Março.”

Text 4 (Translation Text in English)

“(1) Covid-19 is a very dangerous and highly contagious disease that also kills. (2) Covid-19 is spread through non-respiratory coughs and other causes, so let’s take precautions. (3) What is prevention? Prevention involves always washing your hands with soap, drinking hot water with lemon, and not going to strange places. (4) Covid-19 kills, so my advice is that we should all take precautions so that we don’t all get infected. (5) I repeat, let’s take precautions. (6) Covid-19 began to affect Mozambique on March 19.”

Still on the analysis of the aspects of linguistic knowledge, in texts 3 and 4 it can be noted in text 3 in ( 1 ) a nominal disagreement between the adjective and the noun to which it refers, as can be noted in the following productions “…doença muito perigoso...”, “...“…já matou muitas família e muitas pessoa a nível mundial…”, em (3) “…das mão…”, in these cases, a deviation of agreement in gender and number is noted, and at the level of verbal agreement, there is in ( 4 ) the inadequate verbal conjugation of the verb to cough, the learner used the inadequate verbal form “... tossiro …”; in ( 5 ) the construction “…devemos sempre que quando saímos de casa levar contigo a sua máscar…” was found. In this construction, there is a violation of the correlation of mode and tense, in addition to the break in pronominal maintenance in which the learner uses pronouns of different numbers for the same lexical referent. Thus, the learner should have constructed the sentence in the following way [(Texto 3: “... doença muito perigosa…”; “... já matou muitas famílias e muitas pessoas ao nível mundial…”; (5) e /brinque/; (3) “... das mãos…”; (4) “…tusso …”; (5) “... sempre que sairmos de casa levemos connosco a nossa máscara …”]..

The learner makes mistakes in nominal and verbal agreement and in the use of vocabulary. In (1) “…doença muito perigoso…” there is a gender mismatch between the nominal and the core noun; both adjectives are in the incorrect gender. In (3) the article in the construction “…das mão…” does not agree in number with its noun, and later, in (4) the learner uses the wrong form “contámino” and also uses an inappropriate verb “…tingir…”. In this sequence, the learner should have formulated it as follows: Text 4: (1) “… very dangerous disease …” (3) “… das mãos …”; (4) “contaminação”; “...atingir…” “…essas doenças…”.

Texto 5 (Original Text in Portuguese)

" (1) Covid-19 é uma doença respiratória que pode ser uma simples constipação mais grave com problemas agudas graves. (2) Covid-19 é transmitido por animais e pessoas. (3) O vírus é transmitido pelo contacto direito com gotículas respiratórias de uma pessoa infectada, gerada por tosse e espirros e toque de superfícies contaminadas. (4) Uma vez que a covid-19 não tem cura devemos ter muitos cuidados, lavar sempre as mãos com sabão, não abraçar as pessoas, usar a máscara. (5) Sintomas da doença: febre, dor da garganta etc. (6) A covid-19 ainda semeia luto nas famílias, devemos ter muitos cuidados ensinar as crianças a se proteger da doença, manter sempre a distância ao falar com pessoas, devemos nos prevenir da doença porque covid-19 é uma realidade."

Text 5 (Translation Text in English)

"(1) Covid-19 is a respiratory disease that can be a simple cold, but more serious with serious acute problems. (2) Covid-19 is transmitted by animals and people. (3) The virus is transmitted by direct contact with respiratory droplets from an infected person, generated by coughing and sneezing and touching contaminated surfaces.

 (4) Since Covid-19 has no cure, we must be very careful, always wash our hands with soap, do not hug people, wear a mask. (5) Symptoms of the disease: fever, sore throat, etc. (6) Covid-19 still sows mourning in families, we must be very careful to teach children to protect themselves from the disease, always keep their distance when talking to people, we must prevent the disease because Covid-19 is a reality."

Analyzing this textual production, at the level of discursive coherence, it was found right at the beginning of the production, that is, in (1), sequences and/or elements that contradict the previous assumption, that is, the learner presents two contradictory ideas, which breaks the basic principle of discursive coherence, according to which a text must present logical ideas that do not contradict each other (GUIMARÃES, 2007). In the transcription above, the learner states that o Covid-19 pode ser uma simples constipação mais grave com problemas agudas. This sequence does not make any logical sense, although in some passages of the text it is possible to establish partial coherence at the sentence level, however, this harms the overall meaning of the text. Therefore, it is noted that the facts presented by the learner are not related to each other with the world represented, making it difficult to establish the logical meaning of the construction.

Texto 6 (Original Text in Portuguese)

"(1) O Covid-19 surgiu em 2019, saiu da China e entrou em vigor em 03 de Março de 2020 até hoje ainda existe. (2) Covid-19 é um viro e é transmissível facilmente através de contato direito. (3) Ela entra no corpo de alguém em que sentido: quando se compartilhamos os objetos com alguém que tem essa doença logo seremos transmitido também a doença. (4) A prevenção dessa doença para prevenir se em seguinte forma: manter sempre com higene todas os dia, lavar as mão, usar máscra em local agromerado ou público, observar a distância, etc. (5) Em recomendação de Ministério da saúde, compreendo todas essas recomendações junto combateremos o covid-19. (6) Em poucas palavras o covid-19 mata e é muito perigosa, meu conhecimento terminou aqui."

Text 6 (Translation Text in English)

“(1) Covid-19 emerged in 2019, left China and came into effect on March 3, 2020, and still exists today. (2) Covid-19 is a virus and is easily transmitted through direct contact. (3) It enters someone's body in what way: when we share objects with someone who has this disease, we will soon be transmitted the disease as well. (4) The prevention of this disease is as follows: always maintain hygiene every day, wash your hands, wear a mask in crowded or public places, observe the distance, etc. (5) On the recommendation of the Ministry of Health, I understand all these recommendations together we will fight covid-19. (6) In a few words, covid-19 kills and is very dangerous, my knowledge ends here."

Text 6 is also an example of deviations in terms of discursive coherence, similar to what happened in the analysis of text 5, only as representative texts of this sublevel of analysis. Analyzing the passage in (1) of this text: O Covid-19 surgiu em 2019, saiu da China e entrou em vigor em 03 de março de 2020; até hoje ainda existe. This transcription, that is, the textual world presented here, does not coincide with the real world that has been stored in the listener/interlocutor's memory, which creates a discursive incoherence.

Therefore, in general, the learners/speakers did not respect the principles of non-contradiction, continuity and progression of meanings between the parts of their productions, despite the thematic maintenance having been observed, which means that the information presented was related to the theme of Covid-19, however, its organization was disjointed, that is, only a set of sentences without elements that establish the logical semantic meaning of the discourse as previously mentioned is observed, which causes a breakdown in logic and consequently a breakdown in linguistic acceptability.

Still on the level of sociolinguistic and pragmatic factors, we can advance with the following linguistic sequence in the Tsonga language, one of the languages spoken in the southern part of Mozambique (Provinces of Maputo, Gaza and Inhambane), in which the son is talking to his father and the father is uttering some untruths, the son says the following to his father: - “Tatana wa hemba” literally translated into English – “Father is lying”. Therefore, analyzing this statement, despite being linguistically correct, the speaking community of that geographic region does not consider it as socio-culturally acceptable, as it breaks the forms of language use within those communities, where it is not allowed/advisable/acceptable for the son to tell his father or another older/adult person that he is lying. Therefore, when this happens, the author of the statement under analysis (the son) can be considered and/or labeled, according to socially agreed rules, as an undisciplined, uncultured son and also considered to be lacking in communicative competence due to the fact that he did not know how to adapt his statement to a specific and socially established communicative situation. Therefore, the acceptable form in this communicative situation would be – “Xana Tatana, nga endli xihoxo?” translated into English – “Dad, aren’t you mistaken?” Thus, in this linguistic sequence, the idea that the father does not lie is underlying, only that for some reason he made mistakes or was mistaken.

Another issue to consider has to do with the way this statement is said in terms of the type and form of the sentence. Taking into account the convention, the statement/sentence formulated by the son should be of the interrogative type and not in the affirmative form, such as “Tatana u hoxile”, which means in English “Father is mistaken/erroneous”.

Therefore, this construction, despite being linguistically correct, the affirmative form carries with it some nuances or a little lack of respect, and in this context it could be formulated in the form of a question, thus making the statement soft and socially adequate/appropriate.

Conclusion

This study had as its fundamental objective to understand and reflect on the factors/criteria that contribute to the establishment of linguistic acceptability in a given communicative event, taking into account that linguistic acceptability is one of the elements or the guarantee for the occurrence of crucial processes of a fluid and successful communication, since, on the one hand, it involves a whole set of knowledge of grammatical rules and the lexicon of the language, but also the ability of the interlocutor to understand and try to calculate the meaning of the text of the interlocutor(s), starting from the clues it contains and activating their prior knowledge, of the situation, etc. of the interlocutor(s), that is, the author, when producing a statement, has a concrete intention or objective with the reader, and the reader, in turn, strives to comprehend and understand the statement through the knowledge activated and stored in their memory. Therefore, it is clear that there is a relationship between the person who speaks or writes and the person who listens or reads, and there is communicative cooperation between them, as the author explores all possible elements to give meaning to the text, making the reader, through them, activate the knowledge stored in his/her memory and establish an interpretation. Thus, it is concluded that for there to be linguistic or textual acceptability, one must take into account not only the mastery of the grammatical rules and the lexicon of the language, but also the context in which the communication occurs and all the sociocultural aspects or conventions of the speaking community, that is, the learner/speaker must master linguistic knowledge, sociolinguistic knowledge and pragmatic knowledge as factors of acceptability. Still on the criteria that guarantee the establishment of linguistic acceptability, one must not leave aside the respectability of the cooperative principle advanced by Grice (1975) in all its maxims and sub-maxims so that interaction/communication is effective.

References

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Copyright

Copyright © 2024 Jorge Armando Tsucana. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.