Brazilianly foreign and foreignly Brazilian: discourse and language-culture in the love-hate bond

Author(s)

Letícia Cestari Matui

• Document type: Master's Dissertation
• Press: Campinas, SP.
• Institution: Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem
• Defense date: 2024-05-28

Examining board members

Maria José Rodrigues Faria Coracini; Marluza Terezinha Da Rosa; Renan Kenji Sales Hayashi

• Advisor: Maria José Rodrigues Faria Coracini

Abstract

This work arises from the assumption that the relationships between the self and the other can unfold conflicts and tension that destabilize notions of identity and otherness. Taking part of the Applied Linguistics field, and with the aim to investigate the (un)comfortable positions between those social ties, this research has its basis on the perspective of the discursive-deconstructive perspective, which operates on the margins of conflicts and dialogues between Jacques Derrida’s deconstructivism, Jacques Lacan’s psychoanalysis and Michel Foucault’s theories regarding discourse. From this epistemological position, we articulate the identity problem with the deconstructive discuss on the impossibility of static belonging of the subject constituted by language, as well as posing a dialogue with the Lacanian concepts of desire – that which moves us in favor of an unconscious symbolic Ideal -, and of hainamoration – that is, hate-love intertwined, which does not allow for their full distinction of feelings. Taking that into consideration, the present work has the hypothesis that the representations of the self and others, present in Brazilian’s statements about foreigners, give rise to fragments of hainamoration (LACAN, [1972/1973] 1985). To mobilize our hypothesis, we conducted interviews with Brazilian students at a public university, asking about their relationships and perceptions towards foreigners. As a discourse analysis result, it was firstly noted that the research participants’ statements seem to indicate a destabilization of commonly accepted notions of that it means to be Brazilian, which moves and crosses their perception of foreigners, leading to the collapse of identity notions within the national territory itself. Secondly, it was also noted that the identity destabilization seemed to emerge from their discourse among those who had experiences between what was said to be maternal and foreign, whether through family, perspectives on language-culture or migration experiences. Through these perspectives, the participant’s discourse seemed to point to the tension between the Cartesian discourse of the need to identify what is one’s identity and what constitutes otherness, as well as the impossibility to do so in a completely satisfactory way. That conflict, placed within discourse, echoes hate-love displacements between pleasure and displeasure when it comes to the relationships between being seemly Brazilian and being seemly foreign (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 21/06962-5 - Alterity in brazilian discourse: perceptions about the desire of the other foreigner
• Grantee: Letícia Cestari Matui
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master