TITLE:
Nheengatu Language and Its Role in the Tactics of Construction of Indigenous Identity
AUTHORS:
Maria Sílvia Cintra
KEYWORDS:
Identity, Translation, Nheengatu, Resistance
JOURNAL NAME:
Advances in Anthropology,
Vol.8 No.4,
October
22,
2018
ABSTRACT: Nheengatu is one of the
co-official languages of São Gabriel da Cachoeira in the Amazon
region (AM/Brazil). About 8000 people in the Upper Rio Negro region speak it,
and there exists a contemporary movement for its revitalization in the state of
Pará (PA/Brazil). Based upon field research in both these regions, this paper
bears reflections on the inter-relations existing between language and identity
including references in the areas of Applied Linguistics, Culture Semiotics and
Anthropology. I propose a discussion on Nheengatu language, which is often
considered in a dysphoric way, i.e., as if it had been imposed on the natives,
resulting only from the colonizers’ strategies. I propose we can instead
envisage it from the perspective concerning the tactics constructed by the
aboriginals in order to preserve and reconquer their identity, i.e., from the
point of view of a Poetics of Relation within a complex, contradictory and
hybrid linguistic approach.