FOR THE DIFFUSION OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

One of the foundations of scientific practice is the commitment to the diffusion of the knowledge it produces. There is consensus on the value of this principle – there is no sense in generating knowledge that is not disclosed, publicized and placed in dialogue with and within the community. Through this movement we have the measure of its impact, from what it comes to add and develop in relation to the already established bases, from how it comes to challenge and renew the same bases.

This collective evaluation is a stage that only occurs because there is an intricate structure, intermediate between the scientist and his/her reader/addressee, that makes this contact viable. It brings together individuals committed to the performance of different functions – editors, referees, reviewers, translators, librarians, information technicians – who mobilize technical and academic knowledge in a collective and articulated work. Without this web, the research results would not reach their rightful (and dutiful) destination. Or they would arrive without the qualification seal that the editing structure ensures.

I want to highlight the priceless performance of the referees, whose work is at the heart of this process. In an article recently published in Career Column, a Nature’s blog, Mathew Stiller-Reeve talks about how to come up with a complete and effective peer review ( Stiller-Reeve, 2018 ). The author offers a set of practical recommendations to guide the beginners in this activity. The description expresses quite fairly the work that our peers generously have done, lending their expertise and experience to measure the quality of the proposals underlying the submitted manuscripts and the way they are expressed.

In presenting this issue 3 of volume 62, our last edition of 2018, I would like to highlight the volunteer, committed and extremely competent work of the referees that make up the Alpha team. If, as McPeek et al (2009, p. 157) assert, peer review activity has a “reciprocally altruistic nature”, our team follows exactly what the authors defined as the “golden rule” of this activity: “review for others as you would have others review for you” ( McPeek et al., 2009 , p.157)

The present edition maintains the comprehensive and representative character of the avant-garde thinking on linguistic studies that define the mission of Alfa . Eight articles compose it.

The first two are within the scope of discourse and text. Glushkova analyzes the scientific-political-business discourse, a type of discourse that is constituted from the dialogue of the scientific discourse with other spheres of activity. His comparative approach between Brazilian and Russian realities both validates the analysis model itself based on the Bakhtinian studies and reveals similarities between distant and diverse realities. The second study, by Biar and Pinheiro, also explores the political discourse, but to investigate processes of construction of meaning present there. Taking as corpus the speeches made by Fernando Collor de Mello during the presidential campaign of 1989, the authors use the Conceptual Blending Theory to analyze the argumentative role of textual strategies such as the use of syntactic parallelisms.

The main objective of Oliveira’s work is to evaluate the relevance and adequacy of the use of the Social Network Analysis method as a tool for the description of the sociolinguistic reality. It is argued that this method provides a more complete description than that obtained through the control of social macrocategories, as foreseen in the classic Sociolinguistic model. The study tests the method by its application in the speech mapping of adolescents living in a rural district of the city of Londrina-Paraná, showing the gains that it can bring to the understanding of processes of linguistic maintenance and linguistic change.

The fourth article explores a material as rich as not yet exhausted – what is considered the greatest work of Raphael Bluteau, his Vocabulario Portuguez, e Latino . Bluteau was one of the most important Portuguese lexicographers; his Vocabulary was the first of its kind constructed from a reference corpus ( Murakawa, 2007 ). From it, Lopes and Cabral inventory and analyze the Tupi-based Amerindian Brazilianisms, from the etymological point of view and their lexical-grammatical structure; they also systematize them, based on the semantic fields in which they are inserted.

In a study that has as a background the interface between linguistics and computation, Rassi, Baptista, Vale and Mamede present a methodology for the integration of Brazilian Portuguese support verb constructions in XIP parser. The challenge of instrumentalizing the automatic processors of natural language for the correct identification and interpretation of this type of construction arises from its differentiated syntactic-semantic behavior compared to the corresponding full verb constructions. The methodological proposal results from the analysis of a robust set of data of constructions with the support verb dar (‘to give’ ), based on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of Lexicon-Grammar.

Moura and Miliorini return to a cherished topic in discussions on the syntactic structure of languages – the distinction between arguments and adjuncts in the scope of verbal complementation. The purpose of the authors is to evaluate the main syntactic-semantic tests proposed in the literature to allow to establish this distinction. Focusing on constructions that mainly involve the benefactive and locative thematic roles, as they can occur with both internal arguments and adjuncts, the authors conclude by the inconsistency of most of the tests analyzed, except for the ‘anaphoric resumption’ test.

From syntax to phonology, articulated to the process of language acquisition. Oliveira and Berti present a study on the production of syllabic patterns of CCV and CV type in children with typical and atypical phonological development. The analysis of ten children data, by means of auditory, acoustic and sonographic measurements, showed different characteristics in the syllables produced, indicating that children with typical development are closer to the target production for these syllabic patterns.

Closing this issue, we bring a study situated in an area that is nowadays at the frontier of the linguistic knowledge – the Linguistics of Sign Languages. Mertzani examines the diagrammatic iconicity of the Y-hand form in data from two non-cognate sign languages – American sign language and Greek sign language, identifying an association between the hand form and real-world referents.

In a world in which information seems to be very easily accessible, more and more it is necessary that we have criteria and instruments to evaluate the quality of the information that circulates. We reiterate the commitment of Alfa to continue to serve as a channel for the dissemination of serious, appropriate, ethically sound, solidly grounded and innovative research.

Profitable “readings/dialogues” to all!

REFERÊNCIAS

• McPEEK, M. A.; DeANGELIS, D. L; SHAW, R. G.; MORRE, A. J.; RAUSHER, M. D.; STRONG, D. R.; ELLISON, A. M.; BARRETT, L.; RIESEBERG, L.; BREED, M. D.; SULLIVAN, J.; OSENBERG, C. W.; HOLYOAK, M.; ELGAR, M. A. The Golden Rule of Reviewing. The American Naturalist , v.173, n.5, p. 156-158, 2009.
• MURAKAWA, C. de A. A. D. Raphael Bluteau: marco na lexicografia portuguesa de setecentos. In: MURAKAWA, C. de A. A.; GONÇALVES, M. F. (Orgs.). Novas contribuições para o estudo da história e da historiografia da língua portuguesa . São Paulo: Cultura Acadêmica, 2007. p.159-188.
• STILLER-REEVE, M. How to write a thorough peer review. 2018. Disponível em: <https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06991-0>. Acesso em: 27 out. 2018.
  » https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06991-0

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  Sep-Dec 2018