Abstract:
This research work investigates subtractive bilingualism in the Department of Language Sciences
of the Faculty of Language Sciences and Communication at the Pedagogical University of
Mozambique. Specifically, the study aimed not only to identify the causes and impact of subtractive
bilingualism among students in the Language Department of the Faculty of Language Sciences,
Communication and Arts at the Pedagogical University, but also to analyze these causes and impact
and propose mitigation strategies for subtractive bilingualism in teaching a new language. In
methodological terms, the work falls within a qualitative approach, having used semi-structured
interviews, document analysis and observations for data collection in order to answer the research
questions. Because data collection took place in the period in which social distancing had been
established as a preventive measure against the pandemic of COVID-19, the interviews with
teachers and students participating in the study were in a virtual form, through the Zoom platform.
From the triangulated analysis of the collected data, it was concluded that the causes of subtractive
bilingualism among the students of the selected course are the lack of opportunities for using their
first language throughout the course and the students' negative attitude towards their first language
as well as the lack of knowledge about subtractive bilingualism phenomenon by students and
lecturers. A remarkable impact of this linguistic phenomenon among the students is that English
has become the language in which they have the most language knowledge and confidence. That
is, their linguistic and communicative competences are more refined in English than in their first
language, which in this case is Portuguese. As a recommendation, the study points out the need to
elucidate the students and teachers about Subtractive Bilingualism and to create more explicit
opportunities for the use of the students' first language.
