The place of grammar between norm and text: a reflection on mother-tongue teaching

Abstract

The article critically examines the historical relationship between text and grammar, highlighting how the normative tradition and the disciplinary consolidation of grammar in Brazil have generated a fragmented teaching practice detached from real language use. It argues that grammar, since Antiquity, emerged as a tool for reading and textual interpretation, and that the so-called “grammatization revolution” (AUROUX, 1992) transformed language into an object of teaching and cultural power. In the Brazilian context, the consolidation of normative grammar, described by authors such as Chervel (1990) and Bechara (2009), reinforced a prescriptive and decontextualized pedagogy that separated grammar from the production and comprehension of texts. The discursive turn, inaugurated by textual linguistics and enunciative-discursive approaches (MARCUSCHI, 2008; KOCH, 2014; ANTUNES, 2014), redefines grammar as a tool for textualization and meaning-making, placing the text at the core of language learning. The study concludes that reintegrating text and grammar requires overcoming rigid normative models, valuing linguistic diversity, and strengthening linguistic analysis as a formative axis.