Explicit language knowledge: a qualitative analysis of peer interactionAbstract
Research indicates that peer interaction during activities promoting linguistic reflection enables students to deepen their understanding of language. The analysis of such interactions provides insight into students’ conceptualisations of language and their approaches to problem-solving. The present study is aligned with research on L1 grammar education and metalinguistic activity. It analysed peer interaction during an online multiple-choice questionnaire in class, with the aim of identifying the syntactic category of words. The sample was random, composed of 20 Portuguese higher education students (future educators and teachers). A qualitative study was conducted, drawing on recordings and transcriptions of peer interaction. The study also incorporated quantitative data (descriptive statistics), enabling the categorisation of student strategies to identify syntactic categories (direct response, excluding options, definition, linguistic manipulation). A total of eight primary subcategories of linguistic manipulation were identified, namely: distribution, replacement, expanding constructions, question formation, inflection, derivation, reference construction, and parallel examples. The obstacles encountered during the activity were also systematised, with a focus on the non-prototypical use of syntactic categories and limited linguistic manipulation.
Keywords:
higher education
;
linguistic reflection
;
linguistic manipulation
;
metalinguistic activity
;
peer interaction
Resumo
A investigação demonstra que a interação entre pares durante atividades promotoras de reflexão linguística permite aos alunos aprofundar a sua compreensão da língua. A análise dessa interação fornece indícios sobre a forma como conceptualizam a língua e superam dificuldades. No âmbito da investigação sobre ensino de gramática da L1 e atividade metalinguística, o presente estudo analisou a interação entre pares durante a aplicação, em sala de aula, de um questionário online de escolha múltipla, destinado à identificação da categoria sintática de palavras. A amostra foi aleatória, composta por 20 estudantes portugueses do ensino superior (futuros educadores e professores). Com base em transcrições das interações, foi realizado um estudo qualitativo, com recurso pontual a dados quantitativos (estatística descritiva), permitindo categorizar as estratégias utilizadas pelos alunos para identificar categorias sintáticas (resposta direta, exclusão de opções, definição e manipulação linguística). Foram distinguidas oito subcategorias de manipulação linguística: distribuição, substituição, expansão de construções, formação de interrogativas, flexão, derivação, construção de referentes e exemplos paralelos. Além disso, sistematizaram-se os obstáculos encontrados, com enfoque no uso não prototípico de categorias sintáticas e na manipulação linguística limitada.
Palavras-chave:
ensino superior
;
reflexão linguística
;
manipulação linguística
;
atividade metalinguística
;
interação entre pares
1. Introduction
The constructivist perspective that learning is enhanced through interaction (Schwartz et al., 2009) underpins extensive research on student interactions in the classroom. In the field of grammar instruction, peer interaction has been explored within a line of research focused on “metalinguistic activity” to support writing (Camps & Millian, 2000).
Metalinguistic activity is, according to Camps (2017, p. 22), “the activity that has language and its use as an object of observation and analysis” (our translation). The adjective metalinguistic may assume different meanings in literature, and can be associated with different nouns (metalinguistic function, metalinguistic capacity, metalinguistic reflection, metalinguistic representation, metalinguistic awareness, metalinguistic knowledge, among others). One of the main points of disagreement among authors who use this concept lies in defining whether it refers only to a conscious activity, as Culioli (1990) argues, or also includes an unconscious activity, as Karmiloff-Smith (1994) assumes. Accepting as unavoidable the distinction proposed by Culioli (1990) between epilinguistic activity - which occurs without conscious control and is inherent to language use - and metalinguistic activity - which corresponds to a conscious activity of reflection on language - Camps (2014, p. 30) specifies that, in the processes of language teaching and learning, the concept of metalinguistic activity refers to an explicit activity that is manifested externally and can be: (i) not verbalized per se but manifested in verbal or procedural activities such as restatements, repetitions, emphasis; (ii) verbalized in everyday language (e.g., this does not sound good, you do not know who you are talking about); (iii) verbalized with the use of specific metalanguage (e.g., this verb has to be plural). The discourse analysis of metalinguistic dialogues, crucial in this framework, suggests that the peer interaction is a powerful catalyst to foster learners’ reflective processes about language and to integrate grammatical knowledge (Fontich, 2010; Fontich et al. 2022).
Focusing on the context of higher education in Portugal, the present study aimed to analyze the peer interactions that emerged during the completion of an online multiple-choice questionnaire, which was designed to identify the syntactic category of words. Two research questions framed the analysis of peer interaction: (i) What types of strategies do students use to identify syntactic categories? (ii) Which difficulties do students face when identifying syntactic categories?
This study is particularly relevant because the sample consists of students who are preparing to pursue a Master's degree in Education after completing the first three years of a Bachelor's degree in Basic Education (Post-Bologna First Cycle). As future preschool and primary school teachers, these students will play a pivotal role in fostering the oral communication, reading and writing skills of children aged 3 to 12. It is therefore essential for their pedagogical training that these future educators possess explicit language knowledge and the capacity for reflection on linguistic phenomena.
Focusing on prospective teachers is crucial because the approaches they adopt for language and grammar instruction will directly influence their future students’ learning opportunities. By examining the participants’ engagement in metalinguistic reflection during peer interactions, this study sheds light on the competencies they are developing and the challenges they face, offering valuable insights into their preparedness for effectively teaching grammar.
Research indicates that traditional grammar instruction, which is largely based on rote memorisation of rules, is often ineffective and may reduce students’ motivation and linguistic awareness. In contrast, approaches that encourage metalinguistic reflection, collaborative problem solving and contextualised analysis enriched by linguistic metaconcepts foster a deeper understanding of language (Myhill, 2000; Van Rijt et al., 2022).
Furthermore, teachers require a transformed form of linguistic knowledge adapted for classroom practice, often termed ‘pedagogical grammar’ (Odlin, 1994; Andrews, 2010). Investigating prospective teachers’ metalinguistic activity therefore provides valuable evidence regarding the development of pedagogical knowledge, highlighting areas in which initial teacher education could be improved. Despite the significance of this subject, empirical studies are still scarce on how future teachers construct the knowledge of grammar they will later apply in the classroom; this study seeks to contribute to filling that gap.
2. Literature review
Myhill’s (2000) study, built on evidence from twelve-year-old and higher education English L1 students engaged in learning grammar, identified the reasons why the acquisition of metalinguistic knowledge may be problematic. Specifically, the study identified the following factors that hinder learning: (i) misconceptions that students bring from their prior educational experiences, often acquired from teachers and textbooks; (ii) misconceptions promoted by specific characteristics of English grammar, particularly the mobility of word classes; (iii) misconceptions due to cognitive difficulties related to the conceptual demands of grammar and the level of abstraction required for its understanding; (iv) difficulties in the transference of knowledge from passive comprehension to active application; and (v), lastly, the interconnected learning patterns in grammar.
A recurrent misconception stemming from students’ fragmented and deficient grammatical understanding of word classes manifests as an exclusive or preferential reliance on semantic meaning. This entails the identification of word classes based purely on meaning, as opposed to their grammatical function or the relationships between words. As Myhill (2000, p. 155) observes, “The most common definitions given for word classes used both at primary and secondary level equate nouns with naming, verbs with doing and adjectives with describing.”
Consequently, it should be noted that a salient issue with these misconceptions is the inconsistency and oversimplification of grammatical definitions. In educational settings, many definitions are characterized by vagueness, incompleteness, or even misleadingness, thereby contributing to students’ fragmented comprehension of word classes. Another salient misconception pertains to the confusion surrounding the notion of the fixedness of word classes (cf. Myhill, 2000, p. 157). While Myhill’s discussion pertains to English, analogous tendencies can be observed in Portuguese. This confusion stems from an inability to recognize the capacity of a word’s class to undergo modification in accordance with its syntactic environment. When students fail to recognize that a linguistic form may assume different categories, functions, or values, they reveal an understanding of grammar that is static and decontextualized. As Myhill (2000, p. 157) observes, “the tendency to write example lists of word classes in isolation from usage encourages learners to believe that if ‘table’ is a concrete noun it is always a concrete noun, and if ‘dance’ is a verb, it is always a verb.” Such practices have the effect of fostering a view of grammar as fixed rules rather than a complex and dynamic system, leaving little space for problematization or critical reflection.
Pedagogical approaches frequently circumscribe grammatical activities to prototypical cases, thereby reinforcing simplified notions of language structure. Fontich et al. (2022) point out that this excessive focus on prototypical grammatical elements may hinder metalinguistic activity and limit students’ ability to transfer declarative knowledge into actual language use. Conversely, the engagement of learners with atypical or non-prototypical structures, such as defective verbs, light verb constructions, or ambiguous categorisations, engenders opportunities for inquiry, reflection, and the development of a more profound grammatical understanding. This over-reliance on prototypical cases is closely connected to a broader issue: the failure to approach language as a system, where grammatical concepts interrelate and gain meaning in context.
In addressing this challenges, educators must shift the paradigm to focus on the conceptualization of word classes in terms of meaningful relationships between words within sentences and texts, as opposed to a mere enumeration of parts (Myhill, 2000). Yet, students often fail to perceive language as a system, which becomes particularly evident when they struggle to integrate different linguistic aspects simultaneously. As Fontich and García-Folgado (2018) argue, drawing on a Vygotskian perspective, grammatical concepts only become available for conscious reflection and deliberate control when they are part of a wider system of interrelated notions. When approached in isolation, these concepts have a tendency to remain fragmented and resistant to transfer across contexts, which explains why students frequently display incoherent or inconsistent reasoning.
Two decades later, this challenge remains unresolved, at least in the Portuguese context. Indeed, a re-examination of the discourse of todays’s higher education students reveals the persistence of some of the same difficulties and misconceptions that were previously observed. The subsequent presentation of this study’s findings will provide further evidence to support this claim.
A pivotal strategy to tackle this issue, as proposed by Myhill, is to enhance the integration of linguistics with L1 teaching:
The current proposals advocating the return of grammar to the curriculum […] recommend drawing on the best of contemporary academic knowledge about linguistics. […] Linguists in university departments are discussing grammar issues with teachers, and there is a new generation of A level English Language teachers who are confident with grammar and excited by it. (Myhill, 2000, p. 162-163)
Recent empirical research lends substantial support to the notion that metalinguistic knowledge can be enhanced by “enriching traditional grammatical knowledge with linguistic metaconcepts, since modern linguistics has generated many insights and (meta)concepts that could be used to better understand traditional grammatical terminology” (Van Rijt et al., 2022, p. 3).
Furthermore, Van Rijt et al. (2024, p. 9) argue that “manipulations seem to predict overall grammatical reasoning quality” in the discourse of L1 student teachers (p. 9). This is not unexpected, as methodological linguistic manipulations are fundamental tools for a scientific approach to natural languages (see Honda & O’Neil, 2008; Van Rijt, 2024). In addition to integrating linguistic knowledge, it is imperative to explicitly instruct students in methodological linguistic manipulations. However, despite their predictive power, linguistic manipulations are cognitively demanding and rarely practised systematically in school contexts. This explains why many student teachers avoid them in favour of simpler "rules of thumb". Consequently, explicit training in linguistic reasoning is imperative to foster a deeper understanding of grammar and prepare future teachers for pedagogical practices that diverge from traditional approaches.
A paradox emerges when considering that, traditionally, students are not engaged in observation and manipulation activities with linguistic data, entering higher education with limited experience in reflecting on language. Nonetheless, there is empirical evidence that they may be involved in reflection on language since the first years of education.
Empirical research conducted in a Portuguese elementary school demonstrated that students possess the capacity to reflect on language and construct grammatical concepts from their earliest years, through activities involving observation, manipulation, and systematization of linguistic data (see Santos et al., 2014). In Portugal, the new curriculum guidelines, which propose teaching grammar based on observation, hypothesizing, and solving language problems (see Costa et al., 2011), have yet to produce significant changes in classroom practices1.
3. Method
The study involved undergraduate students enrolled in the degree program of Basic Education (1st cycle post-Bologna Process), which provides the credits required to apply to masters in Pre-School Education (3 to 5 years) and Teaching in 1st and 2nd Cycles of Basic Education (6-10 y; 10-12 y). The research was conducted within the curricular unit Syntax and Semantics of Portuguese, taught in the second year of the Basic Education program.
The research in the area of metalinguistic activity has been exploring multiple methodological procedures to engage students in observation and manipulation of linguistic data within inductive and interactive settings, namely: “open production (e.g., writing the continuation of a story, defining a list of items), conditioned production (e.g., combining a list of sentences, completing a list of unfinished definitions), identification (e.g., highlighting specific elements in a text), analysis (e.g., stating a list of features of specific elements in a text), and semi-structured interviews based on the interview-about-instances technique” (Fontich & García-Folgado, 2018, p. 19).
In this study, the activity that triggers metalinguistic activity was the completion of an online multiple-choice questionnaire, created in Google Forms. In the questionnaire, students had to identify the syntactic categories of words (also known as word classes). It consisted of 20 items, each with three possible answers. The linguistic data selected for the questionnaire was taken from a text to provide contextualized real production, avoiding sentences that are built for linguistic manipulation. The selection of words for the enquiry involved a moderate level of difficulty, including cases of homonyms and non-prototypical uses of syntactic categories.
Each item in the questionnaire provided the word within the relevant context to ensure students had all necessary clues to identify the correct syntactic category. The options provided for each item included: (i) the correct syntactic category; (ii) an incorrect syntactic category that typically corresponds to the answer that students provide when they incorrectly identify the syntactic category of the word (often due to homonymy or the sharing of some distributional properties); and (iii) a distractor, i.e., a category that is not very different from the correct category and is not typically mentioned by students in the analysis of similar contexts. When the identification of a subclass was relevant for assessing metalinguistic knowledge, the appropriate subclass was included among the answer options; this was the case for pronouns, determiners, and verbs (the full questionnaire is provided in the Appendix).
The questionnaire was administered at the beginning of the semester as a diagnostic tool, before exploring in the classroom the programmatic content related to syntactic categories.
The students, organized in dyads, answered the online questionnaire on a computer during a face-to-face lesson. Peer interactions were recorded using the students’ mobile phones and the audio was shared with teachers. 10 of 35 interactions were selected for detailed analysis, based on the criterion of diversity in duration, corresponding to about 1 hour and 30 minutes of audio. Peer interactions have an average duration of 9 minutes, with the longest episode being 15 minutes and 26 seconds and the shortest one being 4 minutes and 21 minutes. The peer interaction that takes place to answer each item of the questionnaire is referred to as an episode. After submitting the questionnaire, students received feedback that included the question, their answers, and whether it was correct or incorrect.
The interactions were transcribed, and an identification code was assigned to each dyad (D1, D2..); students working in dyads were identified as S1 and S2. For the analysis, inductive procedures were employed (Bogdan & Bilken, 1994; Bardin, 2004): in the first phase, the type and content of each interaction were coded, focusing on the strategies used by each dyad to find a solution rather than the type of discourse of each participant or the dynamics of the interaction between them (Mercer 2004; Fontich 2010). In the second phase, these codifications were grouped into four major categories considering the type of action undertaken by students to identify the syntactic category: direct response; excluding options; definition strategy; and linguistic manipulation strategy. The direct response consists of the identification of the syntactic category of the target word. The excluding options category is directly related to the type of activity proposed to students, which consists of a multi-choice questionnaire. The definition strategy occurs in peer interactions that resort to definitions of a syntactic category, distinguishing definition by intension from definition by extension2. Linguistic manipulation strategy involves other types of linguistics manipulation, corresponding to a predominantly exploratory process on the part of the participants (e.g., distribution, replacement, expanding contractions). Whenever relevant, the qualitative data were supplemented by quantitative data (descriptive statistics).
4. Findings
As already mentioned, the type of action undertaken by students to identify the syntactic category of the target words in the questionnaire involve four main categories.3 Table 1 displays their relative frequency.
Direct response
With regard to the direct response, students merely identified the syntactic category of the target word. They did not express the reasoning behind their choice. As demonstrated in Example (1), students did not provide a rationale for their responses.
(1)
S1. Na sequência “Minha querida Lily”, a palavra “querida” é adjetivo.
(In the sequence “My dear Lily”, the word “dear” is an adjective.)
S2. Sim.
(Yes.)
(D14)
Excluing options
In regard to excluding options, peers selected an answer by eliminating options that they deemed to be incorrect or less plausible. For instance, in example (2), the options of the multi-choice questionnaire were excluded, and students did not verbalize the reasons behind their choices.
(2)
S1. Na sequência “o interior não deve ser lido”, a palavra “não”...
(In the sequence “the interior should not be read”, the word “not”…)
S2. É, se calhar é uma conjunção, não conjunção não é, adjetivo também não é, deve ser um advérbio.
(It could be a conjunction, no, it isn’t a conjunction, it isn’t an adjective either, it must be an adverb.)
S1. Não é, é um advérbio.
(It isn’t, it’s an adverb.)
(D11)
Definition strategy
Two different types of definition were employed: definition by intension and definition by extension. Intension refers to the definition of a syntactic category based on its intrinsic properties or characteristics (see ((3))). Extension refers to defining a syntactic category based on the set of actual instances or examples that fall under that category (see (4)).
(3)
S1. O livro é intitulado, adjetivo? É para caracterizar, ou não?
(The book is titled, adjective? Is it to characterize, or not?)
S2. Eu acho que sim.
(I think so.)
S1. O adjetivo caracteriza o nome.
(The adjective characterizes the noun.)
S1. Eu acho que é um adjetivo.
(I think it’s an adjective.)
(D11)
(4)
S1. Na sequência “será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll”, a palavra “de” é...
(In the sequence “it will be unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carroll”, the word “by” is…)
S2. Uma preposição, “a”, “ante”, “após”, “até”, “com”, “contra”, “de”, “desde”, “para”, “perante"...
(A preposition, “to”, “before”, “after”, “until” … “by” … [list of Portuguese prepositions])
S1. Isso [risos]
(Exactly [laughs].)
(D33)
As illustrated in Table 2, students defined syntactic categories by intension, with the properties most frequently mentioned. The analysis revealed a preponderance of syntactic and semantic notions. It is important to note that the intensive definitions provided by students might not have met the standards of rigour established in scientific discourse. For instance, the students’ statement “the pronoun may be used to replace a noun” reflects misconceptions acquired during early educational levels that persist in classroom discourse, as well as in some coursebooks and school grammars (see Myhill, 2000).
As illustrated in Table 3, a range of syntactic categories was identified through extension, accompanied by illustrative examples provided from student peer interactions. In certain instances, such has it is with prepositions and pronouns, students are usually taught lists of words that belong to particular syntactic categories. Thereafter, they apply this knowledge to the identification of the syntactic category of target words in the questionnaire.
Linguistic manipulation strategy
The remaining strategies used by students in peer interaction were categorized under the umbrella of linguistic manipulation and involve the subtypes listed in Table 4.
The analysis of the distribution was the linguistic strategy most frequently used by students, being primarily employed for the analysis of words in immediate adjacency. The syntactic categories involved were typically nouns, pronouns, determiners, and (auxiliary) verbs (see (5)).
(5)
S2. Na sequência “espero que esta nota possa chegar”, a palavra “esta”, temos que ver que a seguir vem um nome, por isso não pode ser um pronome, “essa nota”.
(In the sequence “I hope this note can reach,” the word “this,” we have to see that a noun follows, so it can’t be a pronoun, “this note.”)
(D24)
The replacement strategy was primarily used by students to test whether the target word was a pronoun (personal pronoun, relative pronoun, demonstrative pronoun). It was also used for other categories, such as nouns and adjectives. The generalization used was: words that fit into the same syntactic position are considered to belong to the same syntactic category (see (6)). In some instances, the substitution strategy helped to deal with cases of homonymy, such as the word “her”, corresponding to “a” in Portuguese, which can be a pronoun, a preposition, or a determiner (see (7)).
(6)
S2. Na sequência “o livro tem uma moral”, a palavra “moral” é… É um nome!? Acho que é um nome, “tem uma moral”.
(In the phrase “the book has a moral,” the word “moral” is... Is it a noun!? I think it’s a noun, “has a moral”.)
S1. [Adjetivo]?
(Adjective?)
S2. Um adjetivo, não.
(Not an adjective.)
S1. Imagina, porque é o mesmo que pensar, “o livro tem uma história”, iá, a “história” é o quê?
(Imagine, because it’s the same as thinking, “the book has a story,” yeah, what is the “story”?)
S2. É um nome.
(It’s a noun.)
(D15)
(7)
S1. Na sequência “chegar a tempo de a avisar”, a palavra “a” é um…
(In the sentence “arrive in time to warn her,” the word “her” is a…)
S2. “De a avisar”
(“To warn her.”)
S1. É um pronome ou uma preposição.
(It’s a pronoun or a preposition.)
S2. Não.
(No.)
S1. É um pronome, um pronome pessoal.
(It’s a pronoun, a personal pronoun.)
S2. Porque é que não é um determinante?
(Why isn’t it a determiner?)
S1. Determinante vem antes do nome, e ele está a substituir o nome, “de a avisar”, ele está a substituir, imagina…
(A determiner comes before a noun, and here it is replacing the noun. In “to warn her,” it is replacing, imagine…)
S2. Ele está a substituir, por exemplo, “a Ana” ou…
(It is replacing, for example, “the Ana” or…)
S1. Exatamente.
(Exactly.)
(D11)
The strategy expanding contractions was specifically used to categorize the strategy that involved the internal analysis of Portuguese words which resulted from the contraction of a preposition and a determiner (e.g., “por.o>pelo” (“for.the”) in (8); “em.a>na” (“in.the” )).
(8)
S1. Na sequência “enviarei como prenda pelo ano novo”, a palavra “pelo”, ah é um…
(In the sequence “I will send as a gift for the New Year”, the word “pelo”, oh it’s a)
S2. Uma contração.
(A contraction.)
S1. Sim, contração da preposição com um determinante, mas eu não me lembro muito bem disto.
(Yes, it’s a contraction of the preposition with a determiner, but I don’t remember it very well.)
S2. Por exemplo, é “por” mais “o”, “pelo”.
(For example, it’s “por” plus “o,” which forms “pelo.”)
(D24)
The question formulation was typically used to identify syntactic functions. During the questionnaire, students used this strategy to try to identify two syntactic categories: noun ((9)) and conjunction ((10)). In both cases, the question used was what.
(9)
S2. Na sequência “o livro tem uma moral”, a palavra “moral”, um nome, um advérbio... “tem moral”.
(In the sequence “the book has a moral,” the word “moral” is a noun, an adverb… “has moral”.)
S1. Tem o quê? Uma moral. Nome, eu acho que será… que é nome.
(It has what? A moral. Noun, it will be… that it is a noun.)
(D21)
(10)
S1. Na sequência “não quero que o livro constitua um choque”, a palavra “que”…
(In the sequence “I don’t want that the book be a shock,” the word “that”...)
S2. Vamos fazer a pergunta, “Não quero que o livro constitua”... ah pera aí, “Não quero o quê?”. “Que o livro constitua um choque.” Ou seja, estás a perguntar, é uma conjunção.
(Let’s ask the question, “I don’t want that the book be”... wait a minute, “I don’t want what?” “That the book be a shock”. In other words, you’re asking, it’s a conjunction.)
(D24)
Students also explored morphological processes (inflection and derivation) to identify the syntactic category of words. For instance, students conjugated verbs in the person/number to check if the target word belonged to the verb category (see (11)). They also identified derivation relations between words, such as between the adjective “entitled” and the verb “to entitle” in (12).
(11)
S1. Verbo, “intitulado”, será que é um verbo? Intitular…
(Verb, “entitled”, is that a verb? Entitle…)
S2. Eu intitulo, tu intitulas, ele intitula, nós intitulamos, não, acho que é advérbio, o que é que são advérbios? (...)
(I entitle, you entitle, he entitles, we entitle, no, I think it’s an adverb. What are adverbs?)
(D21)
(12)
S1. Na sequência “um livro intitulado” a palavra “intitulado” é, vem de um verbo, mas também é o…
(In the sequence “a book entitled”, the word “entitled”, is, comes from a verb, but it is also the…)
S2. Vem do verbo “intitular”.
(It comes from the verb “to entitle”.)
S1. Sim, mas nesta frase…
(Yes, but in this sentence…)
S2. Mas neste sentido de frase é um adjetivo.
(But in the sense of the sentence it is an adjective.)
(D33)
The reference strategy was used only in the manipulation of examples involving the syntactic category of pronouns (relative pronouns and personal pronouns). In the case of relative pronouns, it concerned the identification of the antecedent of the relative pronoun (13) or the personal pronoun (14):
(13)
S1. OK. Na sequência “A Fonte da Juventude que lhe enviarei”, a palavra “que” é, OK, que [risos]
(OK. In the sequence “The Fountain of Youth that I will send you,” the word “that” is, OK, that [laughs])
S2. (...) que (...) é um pronome relativo, não? (...)
((...) “that” (...) is a relative pronoun, right? (...))
S1. Acho que sim, iá, sim como está, acho que se está a referir à Fonte da Juventude, portanto, sim, acho que é um pronome relativo, exato, OK
(I think so, yeah, just like it is, I think it’s referring to the Fountain of Youth, so yeah, I think it’s a relative pronoun, exactly, OK.)
(D6)
(14)
S2. Na sequência “chegar a tempo de a avisar”, a palavra “a” é um pronome
In the phrase “arrive in time to warn her,” the word “to” is a pronoun.
S1. “De a avisar”, sim porque é avisar alguém que já foi, sim, sim, isso
“To warn her,” yes, because it’s warning someone who has already been, yes, yes, that’s it.
S2. é avisar alguém que já foi falado, ok
It’s warning someone who has already been mentioned, ok.
(D15)
The strategy parallel example was used by students to express in different terms a relation of predication. For this purpose, they constructed a prototypical example with a copulative verb, as shown in (15):
(15)
S2. Agora, “querida” (...) é tipo um adjetivo
(Now, “dear” (...) is like an adjective.)
S1. Sim, é adjetivo, está a…
(Yes, it’s an adjective, it’s…)
S2. Ou nome?
(Or a noun?)
S1. Não, está a classificar como a Lily é, a Lily é querida
(No, it’s describing what Lily is like, Lily is dear.)
(D21)
The category “Other” comprised strategies which were only residually used by students: deletion, agreement and dependent clause identification. The deletion operation involved the omission of a word. In example (16) the student deleted the target word “to be” (“ser”) to check if the resulting sentence was grammatical.
(16)
S2. Na sequência “o interior não deve ser lido”, a palavra “ser”... “ser” é um verbo, copulativo ou auxiliar? “Não deve ser lido”, não deve ler, não deve lido…
(In the sentence “the interior must not be read,” the word “ser” (“to be”)... “ser” (“to be”) is a verb, copulative or auxiliary? “Must not be read”, must not read.INF, must not read.PPART.)
S1. Não, é auxiliar acho eu, porque acho que está a auxiliar o verbo “ler”.
(No, it’s an auxiliary, I think, because I think it’s helping the verb “ler” (to read).)
S2. Porque não…
(Because it does not…)
S1. Porque sem o “ser”, “o interior não deve lido”, não faz sentido, portanto acho que é auxiliar
(Because without the [verb] “to be”, “the interior must not read,” it doesn´t make sense, so I think it´s an auxiliary [verb].
S2. Iá.
(Yeah.)
(D31)
The agreement strategy was used by a dyad to identify the syntactic category of a verb. In example (17), the dyad put the sentence in the plural, concluding that the target word inflected for number.
(17)
S2. Na sequência “espero que esta nota possa chegar”, a palavra “possa” é… eu acho que é um verbo porque (...) se nós tentarmos mudar isso para plural vai mudar é o possa, tipo, “espero que estas notas possam chegar”.
(In the sentence “I hope this note can.3SG arrive”, the word “can” is... I think it’s a verb because (...) if we try to change it to plural, what changes is “can” like, “I hope these notes can.PL arrive”.)
S1. “Possam”, então.
(“Can.3PL”, then.)
S2. O “chegar” não muda apesar de ser, tipo, apesar de “chegar” ser verbo.
(“Arrive” doesn’t change even though it is, like, even though “to arrive” is a verb.)
S1. Fica sempre igual, “possa chegar”.
(It always stays the same, “can arrive”.)
S2. Exato, “possa” ali é que fica tipo um verbo.
(Exactly, “can.3SG” is what acts like a verb there.)
S1. Ah é verbo é, eu acho que sim, então.
(Oh, it is a verb, I guess it is, then.)
(D15)
5. Discussion
As previously mentioned, peer interaction allows for the monitoring of students’ linguistic reasoning, providing clues about the reasons behind their choices. This section focuses on the instances in which students failed to correctly identify the syntactic category of the target words, in order to systematize the obstacles they faced during the completion of the questionnaire. A first insight for this analysis is presented in Table 5, which displays the list of questionnaire items (preceded by the number of item in the questionnaire) with the target words and the associated accuracy rate.
An initial observation was that the accuracy rate did not seem to strictly depend on the syntactic category of the target word. Consider, for example, the case of adjectives, which had an accuracy rate of 50% (“entitled”, “intitulado”), 60% (“unnecessary”, “desnecessário”), or 80% (“dear”, “querida”).
The accuracy rate appeared to result from a confluence of factors, which could be subsumed under the following categories: (i) non-prototypical use of syntactic categories; (ii) poor use of linguistic manipulation.
Non-prototypical use of syntactic categories
One of the obstacles students encountered was that certain target words from the questionnaire pertain to unconventional contexts or forms. These did not align with the prototypical utilization of a given syntactic category, thereby presenting a challenge to students who were not accustomed to such variations. This was the case with the adjective “unnecessary”, which, in the context given in the questionnaire, was not a modifier, adjacent to a noun. Instead, it occurred in a predicative structure whose subject was not a noun phrase, but an infinitive clause : it will be unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carrol4. The discussion in (18) shows the students’ efforts to deal with this complex construal.
(18)
S1. Na sequência “será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll”, a palavra “desnecessário” é
(In the sequence, “it will be unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carroll”, the word “unnecessary” is…)
S2. É um adjetivo, é algo desnecessário, por exemplo, aquilo, aquilo é necessário, o facto de ser necessário caracteriza o nome, caracteriza o objeto neste caso.
(It is an adjective, it is something unnecessary, for example, that, that is necessary, the fact of being necessary characterizes the noun, characterizes the object in this case.)
S1. Olha que, por acaso agora que estou a pensar nisso, acho que não é.
(Look, actually now that I’m thinking about it, I think it isn’t.)
S2. Então?
(So?)
S1. Tipo, imagina, se estivesse ali o livro é desnecessário, está, está a caracterizar o livro, mas aqui não está a caracterizar tipo nada, está a dizer será desnecessário dizer bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, estás a ver?
(Like, imagine, if it said the book is unnecessary, it is characterizing the book, but here it isn’t characterizing anything, it’s saying it will be unnecessary to say blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you see?)
S2. Que é desnecessário dizer
(That is unnecessary to say)
S1. No fundo, não estás a caracterizar nada.
(In essence, you aren’t characterizing anything.)
(D15)
The fact that students realized that “unnecessary” was not attributing a property to a nominal subject made it harder to identify it as an adjective. Fontich et al. (2022, p. 14) note that these difficulties seem to stem from the fact that grammar activities are excessively focused on prototypical grammatical elements (Notario, 2021).
Another facet of prototypicality is related to the simplifications and overgeneralizations that grammatical content has undergone in some classroom discourse and school grammars. On one hand, notional representations are used in the definition of a syntactic category, leading to reductive conceptions, such as, for example, defining the noun as “the words that represent people, objects and animals” or the verb as the words that represent “actions”. On the other hand, semantic properties that partially characterize a given category are sometimes assumed to be exclusive to that category. For instance, adjectives are sometimes associated with the feature [-concrete]; hence, a word such as “joy” (“alegria”) might be classified as an adjective; the adverbs are associated with the semantic feature [+locative], hence a word such as “outside” (“exterior”) might be classified as an adverb. Conceptually, it diverges from the prototypical noun and comes closer to the semantic features associated with adverbs (see (19)).
(19)
S1. Na sequência “o livro deve aliás ser visto do exterior”, a palavra “exterior” é, é aquilo (...)
(In the sequence, “the book must be seen from the exterior”, the word “exterior” is, it’s that)
S2. Que antes era de…
(Which used to be…)
S1. É os advérbios tipo de lugar.
(It’s the adverbs of place.)
S2. Sim.
(Yes.)
S1. Porque está a dizer que é em algum sítio.
(Because it’s saying that it’s somewhere.)
(D15)
As illustrated in Table 5, students encountered significant challenges in identifying the syntactic category of the noun “outside” (70%), in contrast to the noun “moral” (90%).
Use of linguistic manipulation
Linguistic manipulations also posed a challenge for students, which was evident at various levels. In some interactions, students mentioned the manipulation they should use and the result supposedly reached by its application, but did not effectively apply the manipulation to the data being analyzed. For instance, example (20) outlines the line of argumentation followed to decide whether the target word was a determiner or a pronoun.
(20)
S1. Na sequência “espero que esta nota possa chegar”, a palavra “esta” é …
(In the sequence “I hope this note can arrive”, the word “this” is …)
S2. É demonstrativo, mas agora é um pronome ou é um determinante? Um determinante demonstrativo ou um pronome demonstrativo?
(It’s demonstrative, but now is it a pronoun or is it a determiner? A demonstrative
determiner or a demonstrative pronoun?)
S1. Eu acho que é um pronome porque está a substituir, exato, OK.
(I think it’s a pronoun because it’s replacing, exactly, OK.)
(D18)
These data suggests, in line with Van Rijt et al. (2024), that although linguistic operations are a good predictor to good grammatical reasoning, students must be trained to engage in linguistic manipulations effectively.
On the other hand, poor linguistic manipulations were also linked to insufficient, fragmented and unsystematic explicit linguistic knowledge, as is the case in (21):
(21)
S2. Na sequência “será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carrol”, a palavra “de” é, (...) eu acho que é um determinante
(In the sequence “it won’t be necessary to say it’s not by Lewis Carrol”, the word “by” is, (…) I think it’s a determiner)
S1. Ok
(OK)
S2. porque Lewis Carroll é um nome, nome próprio, mas é um nome
(because Lewis Carroll is a noun, a proper noun, but it’s a noun)
(D15)
Students struggled with linguistic manipulations when various linguistic aspects must be considered to support a thorough analysis. In (21), students overlooked the information that nouns, particularly proper nouns, are not always preceded by a determiner and can also be preceded by a preposition. Fontich and García-Folgado (2018) emphasize that for students to grasp grammatical concepts, they “ought to build them up based on a system of relationships among them” (p. 10).
The difficulty experienced by students tended to increase when words might belong to a different syntactic category in a different syntactic context. This is the case of “that” (“que”), which can be a relative pronoun or a conjunction, and “to be” (“ser”), which can be a copulative or a passive auxiliary. As can be seen in Table 5, these words had lower accuracy rates (between 50% and 70%). It is worth noting that many students, despite being aware of homonymy and its implications for analysis (see (22)), were still unable to use linguistic manipulation to get a grasp in the syntactic category of the word.
(22)
S2. (...) a palavra “que”, tínhamos visto isto lá em cima
(the word “that”, we had seen it up above)
S1. Hum? Mas é diferente, não é por ser a mesma palavra, tem a ver com a frase
(Huh? But it’s different, it’s not because it’s the same word, it has to do with the sentence.)
(D31)
Overall, the evidence suggests that students’ use of linguistic manipulation was generally limited and often ineffective, reflecting a lack of systematic training during their earlier education. However, the data also reveal that linguistic manipulation is an accessible strategy, as some students were able to utilise it effectively. This suggests that, in the absence of explicit instruction, students may be relying on their linguistic intuition as speakers rather than on knowledge consolidated through formal education. These findings highlight the potential of linguistic manipulation as a tool for grammatical reasoning, as well as the need to provide students with explicit opportunities to develop and systematise this skill.
6. Conclusion
This study explored the peer interaction that emerged during the completion of an online multiple-choice questionnaire in a classroom setting. The objective of the questionnaire was to identify the syntactic category of words. The results demonstrated that this activity encouraged higher education students, who will be future teachers, to engage in a deeper and more meaningful analysis of linguistic aspects. Through peer interaction, students resorted to linguistic strategies to analyse the empirical data provided, such as distribution, replacement, question formation, inflection, derivation, and reference construction. The challenges encountered by the students were predominantly associated with their limited proficiency in manipulating linguistic strategies, which is indicative of their inadequate, fragmented, and unsystematic explicit linguistic knowledge. This deficiency hindered their ability to analyze words that did not occur in prototypical contexts. The obstacles identified in students’ reasoning highlight areas where teacher education could provide more systematic support, particularly in developing the ability to handle complex and atypical linguistic structures.
These findings have clear pedagogical implications: as future early years educators, students need a solid grasp of language to foster linguistic awareness in their pupils and lay the foundations for further learning. Teacher education programs should therefore prioritise not only the development of linguistic mastery but also the ability to analyse, explain, and teach language in pedagogically meaningful ways. In increasingly diverse classrooms, this also entails fostering critical and inclusive approaches to grammar that empower students as language users.
Future research endeavours are recommended to incorporate a revised instrument. This modification, in the questionnaire, involves replacing the multiple-choice options, which offer three predetermined responses, with a drop-down list encompassing the full spectrum of existing syntactic categories. This adjustment is designed to prevent predefined response options from influencing students’ linguistic reasoning, thereby ensuring a more objective assessment of their cognitive processes.
With the refinement of these methodological procedures, a promising line of investigation would be to perform a quantitative analysis of the collected data. Specifically, an inferential statistical analysis could explore correlations, for instance, between the strategies employed by students and the accuracy rates. Further research in this area can provide important insights about instructional strategies that can effectively help students to improve their skills in this domain.
Ultimately, the significance of this study also lies in its focus on prospective teachers, who will soon be responsible for teaching Portuguese in Basic Education. These future educators may either reproduce the traditional, prescriptive approaches to grammar they experienced as students or, alternatively, break away from them to implement more reflective and inclusive practices. Although this research is situated in the Portuguese context, the challenges and opportunities it addresses are also relevant to other Portuguese-speaking communities, such as Brazil, where similar debates on the role of grammar in language education are present.
Acknowledgements
Adriana Cardoso is a researcher at the University of Lisbon, School of Arts and Humanities, Centre of Linguistics. Her participation in this study is supported by national funds through FCT - Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, I.P., under project UID/00214/2025.
Data available upon request
The data used in this study is available upon request to the corresponding author susanacp@eselx.ipl.pt.
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» https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1075/pl.21008.van
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1
In Portugal, official curricular documents articulate a rationale whereby (i) grammar teaching is valued as an end in itself, and (ii) grammatical knowledge is mobilized in connection with speaking, reading, and writing, thereby seeking a balance between knowledge-related and literacy-related rationales (Van Rijt & Coppen, 2021). Thus, as Costa (2020) observes that, despite recurrent shifts in educational policy, the Portuguese curriculum maintains a central focus on grammar as a competence in its own right, autonomous from oral and written comprehension and expression. Moreover, the instructional time devoted to grammar is equivalent to that of the other components. However, as Ferreira et al. (2013) point out, this curricular emphasis has not necessarily translated into substantial changes in teachers’ conceptions or in their classroom practices.
-
2
The concepts of definition by intention and extension are applied here in a broad sense. A similar use of these concepts is adopted by Raposo (1984) in the contrast established between an intensional and extensional definition of the concept of Portuguese Language.
-
3
In the categorization of the data, only episodes that did not involve any other strategies were categorized as strategy 1. The other strategies are cumulative, meaning that in the same episode one or more strategies (2, 3, and/or 4) was used by students.
-
4
In the sentence in Portuguese será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll, the subject is an infinitival clause (dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll). Moreover, the sentence displays a marked word order, since the subject occurs in postverbal position rather than in the unmarked preverbal one.
Appendix A
Questionnaire
Identify the class/subclass of the numbered words in the text below:
“(...) (1)Minha (2)querida Lily,Encomendei um livrinho (3)intitulado a Fonte da Juventude (4)que (5)lhe enviarei como prenda (6)pelo Ano Novo (7)e espero que (8)esta nota (9)possa chegar a tempo de (10)a avisar, pois não quero (11)que o livro constitua um (12)choque para si. O livro deve, aliás, ser visto do (13)exterior, e, logo em seguida, guardado (14)na estante: o interior (15)não deve (16)ser lido. O livro tem uma (17)moral; por isso, será (18)desnecessário dizer (19)que não é (20)de Lewis Carroll. (...)” adapted from Lewis Carroll Meninas
(“(...) (1)My (2)dear Lily, I have ordered a little book (3)entitled The Fountain of Youth (4)that I will send (5)you as a gift (6)for the New Year (7)and I hope that (8)this note (9)can arrive in time to warn (10)you, as I do not want (11)that the book constitutes a (12)shock to you. The book should, in fact, be seen from the (13)outside, and then immediately stored (14)on the bookshelf: the inside should (15)not (16)be read. The book has a (17)moral; therefore, it is (18)unnecessary to say (19)that it is not (20)by Lewis Carroll. (...)”)
1. Na sequência Minha querida Lily a palavra Minha é:
(In the sequence ‘My dear Lily,’ the word ‘My’ is):
a) a possessive pronoun
b) a quantifier
c) a possessive determiner
2. Na sequência Minha querida Lily a palavra querida é:
(In the sequence ‘My dear Lily,’ the word ‘dear’ is):
a) a noun
b) a determiner
c) an adjective
3. Na sequência “um livrinho intitulado“ a palavra “intitulado” é:
(In the sequence ‘a little book entitled,’ the word ‘entitled’ is):
a) an adverb
b) an adjective
c) a verb
4. Na sequência a Fonte da Juventude que lhe enviarei a palavra que é:
(In the sequence ‘the Fountain of Youth that I will send you,’ the word ‘that’ is):
a) a demonstrative pronoun
b) a relative pronoun
c) a conjunction
5. Na sequência a Fonte da Juventude que lhe enviarei a palavra lhe é:
(In the sequence ‘the Fountain of Youth that I will send you,’ the word ‘you’ is):
a) a main verb
b) a personal pronoun
c) a preposition
6. Na sequência enviarei como prenda pelo Ano Novo a palavra pelo é:
(In the sequence ‘I will send as a gift for the New Year,’ the word ‘for’ is):
a) a noun
b) a preposition
c) the contraction of a preposition with a determiner
7. Na sequência enviarei pelo ano novo e espero a palavra e é:
(In the sequence ‘I will send it for the New Year and I hope,’ the word ‘and’ is):
a) a preposition
b) a conjunction
c) a verb
8. Na sequência “espero que esta nota possa chegar“ a palavra “esta” é:
(In the sequence ‘I hope this note can arrive,’ the word ‘this’ is):
a) a demonstrative determiner
b) a demonstrative pronoun
c) a possessive pronoun
9. Na sequência espero que esta nota possa chegar a palavra possa é:
(In the sequence ‘I hope this note can arrive,’ the word ‘can’ is):
a) a verb
b) a noun
c) a pronoun
10. Na sequência chegar a tempo de a avisar a palavra a é:
(In the sequence ‘arrive in time to warn her,’ the word ‘her’ is):
a) a determiner
b) a personal pronoun
c) a preposition
11. Na sequência não quero que o livro constitua um choque a palavra que é:
(In the sequence ‘I do not want that the book constitutes a shock’ the word ‘that’ is):
a) a personal pronoun
b) a relative pronoun
c) a conjunction
12. Na sequência não quero que o livro constitua um choque a palavra choque é:
(In the sequence ‘I do not want that the book constitutes a shock’ the word ‘shock’ is):
a) a noun
b) an adverb
c) an adjective
13. Na sequência O livro deve, aliás, ser visto do exterior a palavra exterior é:
(In the sequence ‘The book should, in fact, be seen from the outside,’ the word ‘outside’ is):
a) an adjective
b) a noun
c) an adverb
14. Na sequência guardado na estante a palavra na é:
(In the sequence ‘stored on the bookshelf’, the word ‘on’ is):
a) the contraction of a preposition with a determiner
b) an adverb
c) a preposition
15. Na sequência o interior não deve ser lido a palavra não é:
(In the sequence ‘the inside should not be read’ the word ‘not’ is):
a) a conjunction
b) an adverb
c) an adjective
16. Na sequência o interior não deve ser lido a palavra ser é:
(In the sequence ‘the inside should not be read’ the word ‘be’ is):
a) a noun
b) an auxiliary verb
c) a copulative verb
17. Na sequência O livro tem uma moral a palavra moral é:
(In the sequence ‘The book has a moral,’ the word ‘moral’ is):
a) an adjective
b) a noun
c) an adverb
18. Na sequência será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll a palavra desnecessário é:
(In the sequence ‘it is unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carroll,’ the word ‘unnecessary’ is):
a) a noun
b) an adverb
c) an adjective
19. Na sequência será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll a palavra que é:
(In the sequence ‘it is unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carroll,’ the word ‘that’ is):
a) a personal pronoun
b) a conjunction
c) a relative pronoun
20. Na sequência será desnecessário dizer que não é de Lewis Carroll a palavra de é:
(In the sequence ‘it is unnecessary to say that it is not by Lewis Carroll,’ the word ‘by’ is):
a) a determiner
b) a preposition
c) a conjunction
Edited by
-
EDITORA GERAL:
Marcia Veirano Pinto http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0795-6297
