A tradução da linguagem matemática na aprendizagem da geometria por estudantes da educação básica: perspectivas para a educação matemática

Abstract

The present research aimed to investigate the process of translation of mathematical language into natural language in mathematics learning. We take as a starting point the academic productions of dissertations and theses in the area, and the results of the index of development of Basic Education (IDEB) and PISA, of the State of Tocantins. We assume as a theoretical basis the mature philosophy of Wittgenstein, which states that translating is a game of language, since it constitutes the domain of techniques. We carried out analyzes of educational guidance documents and a classroom intervention with elementary students at the Brigadeiro Felipe school in Arraias-To, which produced the empirical material constituted from the application of a questionnaire, interviews and activities of flat geometry . The analyzes were organized in two axes, in the first one we analyzed the documents guiding the education and in the second the empirical material. In the first axis, the analyzes of the documents revealed a referential understanding of the language indicating the mathematical language exclusively as a symbology that represents the mathematical concept. Already in the second axis, the empirical material indicated that the translation of the mathematical language reveals itself as an internal necessity to mathematics itself and that when performing different language games during the translation favors and ensures its learning. With this we defend that the learning difficulties of mathematics are related to the understanding of the concepts and their rules, in what concerns to the process of translation of the linguistic universe that involves the mathematical language, because it is a normative phenomenon and its use is far from the practice everyday life. Thus, the correct translation of this language promotes the autonomy of the student in the acquisition of meanings favoring applications of the uses in different contexts.