Full text
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| Author(s): |
Leandro Rodrigues Alves Diniz
Total Authors: 1
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| Document type: | Master's Dissertation |
| Institution: | Universidade Estadual de Campinas (UNICAMP). Instituto de Estudos da Linguagem |
| Defense date: | 2008-03-25 |
| Examining board members: |
Maria Teresa Celada;
Maria Onice Payer
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| Advisor: | Monica Graciela Zoppi Fontana |
| Abstract | |
Based on the History of Linguistic Ideas in its relation to the Discourse Analysis from a materialistic perspective, we study the discursive construction of Brazilian Portuguese as a foreign language (PFL), which starts from the broadening of its ¿space of enunciation¿ (GUIMARÃES, 2002). To undertake such research, we investigate two instances of the Brazilian grammatisation of Portuguese ¿ PFL coursebooks and the Certificate of Proficiency in Portuguese as a Foreign Language (Celpe-Bras) ¿, conceived of as linguistic instruments, which are at the core of what Orlandi (2007a) designates the ¿politics of languages¿. After mapping the Brazilian editorial production of PFL coursebooks since the publication of the first material ¿ which enabled us to observe interesting diachronic changes ¿, we composed our corpus for the study of the coursebooks. For the investigation of Celpe-Bras, we concentrated on the exam booklets and on an interview with an ex-member of the technical comission of Celpe-Bras. Our study indicates that the creation of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUR), in 1991, may be considered the turning point for a new period in the Brazilian grammatisation process (ZOPPI-FONTANA, 2007). This period is characterised by a gesture of the Brazilian State for the inclusion of Brazilian Portuguese in a transnational space of enunciation, which reverberates through different initiatives taken by civil society. A new position of autorship for the Brazilian State / citizen is thereby stablished. In addition, we have observed that Portuguese is frequently signified as a language ¿of the world of communication¿, of ¿commercial trade¿, which ¿is everywhere¿. Therefore, it is represented as a vehicular language (GOBARD, 1976) rather than as a language of regional integration. However, that is a specific representation of a vehicular language, related to the advance of ¿worldwide integrated capitalism¿, in the words of Guattari (1987). For instance, ¿mastering¿ the Portuguese language is related to sucess, as a reward for those who obey Market laws, in contemporaneity (PAYER, 2005). Besides, Portuguese is not represented as a ¿neutral and objective¿ language, ¿dispossessed of its ethnic specificities¿ (GOBARD, op. cit., p. 36). On the contrary, we observe the functioning of a ¿discourse of Brazilianity¿, through which an allusion to Brazil ¿ and not to Portugal ¿ is, one way or the other, always made, revealing the work of the politics of silence (ORLANDI, 2002b). In terms of Market, this discourse enables the ¿sale¿ of the Portuguese language, as an instrument for achieving another objective, and, consequently, the ¿sale¿ of the ¿products¿ in question: the coursebooks and Celpe-Bras. With reference to the State, it is noticeable that Brazil, defined by linguistic policies pursued by Portugal, begins to challenge Portugal regarding political, symbolic and economic spaces. We conceive, therefore, Brazilian Portuguese not as a globalised language, but as a transnational one, since it ¿exports¿ itself as a metonymy of the Brazilian State. We also conclude that the Brazilian grammatisation of PFL is outlined by two metainstitutions which, according to Payer (op. cit.), play a leading role in the constitution of the contemporary subject: the State and the Market (AU) | |