Política linguística, língua Macuxi e Comunidade São Jorge

Abstract

Our main objective is to contribute to initiatives to revitalize the Macuxi language in the São Jorge Community. In the short term, we intend to invest in a language policy project. Therefore, we seek, through interviews, to map the degree of fluency of the language, meeting the following objectives: (i) Reflect on this situation, seeking to undertake a wide-ranging policy for the revitalization of the Macuxi language and (ii) Invest in a project emphasizing the study of Macuxi with different activities: listening to those who are more fluent in the language; listen to the rememberers with different stories about the Macuxi people and culture. In theoretical terms, we follow the materialist school of Discourse Analysis, cutting out the main concepts within the scope of Language Policy, in order to undertake a language policy drawn up by indigenous people, thus hoping to meet their real interests. To reflect on the degree of fluency, in number of individuals, we sometimes adopt works in the area of Linguistic Policy, proposed by European-based Sociolinguistics and others proposed, above all, by the materialist school of Discourse Analysis, when language policies become the focus of discussion. Our analysis strategies were based on tabulating the 36 interviews obtained spontaneously, collected in person in the São Jorge community and with authorization to use the interview data. Thus, this total corresponds to 36 consultants divided into three different age groups: 07 to 20 years; 21 years to 40 and 41 years or more. The content of the interviews was grouped into three questions: one multiple-choice question, with 10 answer options and more than one option; another multiple-choice question, with 4 answer options and more than one option; and a third discursive question, which asked for justification of the answer given in question two. This material was analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively, taking as a theoretical basis for the analysis the concepts presented in Chapter 1 and others explored in the body of our reflections. The analysis of the discursive responses was based on Courtine's (2016) proposal, which considers that, after structuring the corpus, we arrive at what can be considered a discursive montage, which is structured in discursive sequences (DSs), which can be cut out. The main conclusions we reached are that Macuxi is fluent in situations of interlocution, communication and reaffirmation of their culture. Languages, when silenced, don't fall silent, they don't die, they migrate to be heard in these specific situations. And it is these discursive practices that sustain the memory of languages and peoples of orality. It is these practices that also allow us to reaffirm the concept of ethnodiscursive identity, when we see ourselves as speakers of an indigenous language and, for historical reasons, users of Portuguese.