O fenômeno da alternância de código na aldeia Ticuna Umariaçu

Abstract

The phenomenon of code-switching, observed in the speech of the Ticuna people from Umariaçu village, located at the tri-border region between Brazil, Colombia, and Peru, manifests itself through the simultaneous use of Ticuna, Portuguese, and Spanish. This practice, although often unnoticed by speakers, has drawn the attention and concern of local teachers and indigenous leaders. On the one hand, code-switching can be seen as a creative communicative skill, reflecting the community’s multilingual competence; on the other hand, it may indicate the weakening of the native language. Understanding this phenomenon requires analyzing the historical, social, and linguistic context of the village, from the first contacts with explorers to the present day. This study critically examines this process, aiming to identify the factors that have led the current generation to adopt code-switching. This qualitative research analyzed spontaneous social interactions among Ticuna speakers. Data were collected through audio recordings and field notes, resulting in a corpus of 24 speech excerpts. The analysis, based on authors who discuss code-switching, considered grammatical and discursive aspects at the word, phrase, and sentence levels in both Portuguese and Spanish. The results indicate that code-switching arises from intense contact with the surrounding majority languages and emerges as a linguistic survival strategy through which the Ticuna language seeks to remain alive under external pressures.