From the appropriation of the term “letramento” to the construction of the concept “letramento informacional”: an examination in the light of the New Literacy Studies (NLS)
Literacy. Letramento. Letramento Informacional. New Literacy Studies (NLS). Appropriation. Concept.
It investigates how the term “letramento” was appropriated for the construction of the concept of “letramento informacional” in order to characterize, analyze and explain such appropriation, from the theoretical lens of the New Literacy Studies (NLS). Specifically, it intends to: present the foundations of the NLS theory and how the term letramento and the concepts of letramento was coined in Brazil; to map the origin of the concept of “letramento informacional”, through a survey of national scientific production; analyze the corpus in order to find the justifications for the choice of the term, preference for the translation “letramento informacional”, the definitions and foundations that support this concept; explain how the concept of “letramento informacional” was formulated, how the concept of letramento was appropriated, especially by Information Science, and what are the implications of this, having the NLS as a guiding theory. The choice in this thesis to study information literacy as a translation of information literacy is due to the fact that that expression contains a term that originally comes from another domain, that is, letramento; due to the need to deepen studies on the epistemological foundations of the concepts, since these bases have a direct impact on the methodology of these studies and can interfere with the operationalization of the concept. In methodological terms, it is characterized by having an exploratory and descriptive nature, as it intends to investigate the origin of the terms in question, make an epistemological discussion about the theme and identify its theoretical and conceptual foundations. The data collection procedures used were a systematic survey of scientific production on “letramento informacional” and a bibliographic survey on the NLS and the concepts of “literacy” and “letramento”.