Since the issues related to pedagogical practices have taken growing interest at an international level, this work intends to discuss the linguistic-literary mechanisms which lead parables to exert their didactic function as they promote an interactive relation between interlocutors, which suggests that this relation might be considered within a dynamic context. Consequently, this changing of emphasis results in changing of power in terms of relations between those who are involved in the teaching and learning process. So, in general, this paper is designed to contemplate the educational process and, more specifically, to present the genre of parable from conceptual, literary and linguistic point of view as a meta-narrative form which is short, non-mimetic and alegorical, what gives it a universal dimension. Having this particular structure and producing analogical relations through their alegorical characteristic they achieve the pragmatic finality of communicating informations, transfering principles, influencing intelectualy the audience, that is, exerting its role as an immensely useful source of teaching. This didactic and educational objective is fulfilled mainly because they install a favourable atmosphere into teaching/learning process and reach, in a subtile way, the emotions of audience. Developing this subject, Lausberg (1970) as well as Kirkwood (1985) and Northrop Frye (1989) are in theorethical harmony to demonstrate that the major elements which are responsible to embody any specific teaching are, in fact, the discoursive mechanisms, the shape in how things are presented, the organization of themes in itself. According to Frye, for instance , the teaching/learning process requires what is called by him of dissociative rhethoric, whose basis is to cancel usual reactions. Actually, what this sort of short narratives, the parables, do is to dissociate learners from the teaching itself, apparently putting the topic which is being taught a bit aside for a moment. By doing so, the possibilities of emerging usual reactions such as rejections, misunderstandings, difficulties for assimilation are momentaneously suspended to give way to an atmosphere of distension in the teaching/learning process. At first glance, these narratives seem to be unpretensious but, anyway, they are attractives and pleasants, begining with their shape of expression. Our purpose then is not other but to use some tools, which are in total agreement with the major principal of interactive relations between teachers/learners, in order to improve our own professional performance, looking forward to reach a higher degree of professionalism as well as to influence and benefit people who are specifically involved into this realm as, for instance, a group of undergraduated students, who are under our supervision and totally linked to educational process in poor areas in Brazil. Besides, we normally teach postgraduate courses on parable as a pragmatic means of teaching and learning. Apart from that, many teachers who work in Brazilian official schools, to whom we offer specialization courses, will also be directly reached by the results of this Conference as well as affected by its implications for their teacher’s work.

The methodology which is being used to develop this work includes researches and teachings, at undergraduate and pos-graduate levels as well as pedagogical practices to develop projects of educational improvement, under my supervision, in official schools. Besides, we use to offer some government specialization courses known as Programa de Educação Continuada (Continued Education Programm), Pedagogia Cidadã (Pedagogy for Citizenship) and Teia do Saber (Knowledge Network) to a large number of teachers in State of Sao Paulo.

From this research and its application in real situations it is already possible to affirm that the non-mimetism of parabolic narratives constitutes a formal index which guarantees its efficiency into pedagogical practice. Such a non-mimetism contributes to its limitless historical transposition and to its constitution as an emotional dimension. So, everything indicates that the parabolic form is highly adequate to exercising an specific didactic function in an interactive teaching/learning process. Nevertheless, it is reckoned that this field of research has been growing quickly and is still widely open to many new insights, some of what we would like to have when sharing our work and receiving from others at the Conference I am applying to.