“A língua tupi não morreu, tá viva correndo nas veias”: o processo de revitalização da língua tupi à luz da política e do planejamento linguístico

Abstract

Evermore, the fact that minority languages are within a process of dissipation is a global phenomenon, which is attracting more acknowledgment over the past years. In Brazil, the belief that we do live in a monolingual country impetrate reasons to reinforce the ignorance towards indigenous languages and therefore that we live in a multilingual county (MAHER, 2010). In Paraíba, a state in Brazil, we gathered that the Potiguara people develop actions towards the revitalization of Tupi language. Our research aims at analyzing the beliefs about Tupi according to teachers, school managers and the indigenous group leader. Moreover, we intend to analyze the practices of a teacher within a specific school environment inside an indigenous territory, settled in a formal school teaching system. Both analyses are aligned to the revitalization of Tupi discussion. We begin our discussion according to two main theoretical perspectives: Language Planning, by Cooper (1989) which we will specifically review the Acquisition Planning in order to understand that the school is an important field to achieve the revitalization of a language. The second perspective is Spolsky’s (2004, 2009, 2012) Language Policy which we pursue to explore the beliefs dimension, as well as the component of the practice by the actions of the teacher as the main agent for the choices taken in the name of situating deliberate efforts to revitalize the Tupi language. We operationalize our main objective according to methodological choices related to semi structured interviews to 4 tupi language teachers from different Potiguara territories in Paraíba, the principal and the director of a school, as well as the chief indigenous leader. Next, we tuned our investigation towards the investigation in one indigenous school in Monte Mor territory, in Rio Tinto city, Paraíba. Therefore, we intend to deeply investigate how the revitalization of Tupi language occur within this reality. We have observed 12 classes of this particular teacher, whether one group staged as 6th and 7th grade, respectively, according to Brazilian standard classification of stages in formal classes. We analyze our data in accordance with the interpretativist paradigm. We identify that the tupi language as a resource of connection between ethnic identity and the culture of Potiguara people. Also, we observe the connection between the tupi language with the belief that it can be seen as a gun. We do also considerate relevant to point out, in relation to the classes, that the tupi language teacher asserts to consider languages as systems. Therefore, the tupi minority language and the Portuguese majority language are in a constant force controversy throughout the teacher’s classes as he uses the translation as his main language teaching technique. By the end of the research we identify that the Potiguara people have as a main objective to reacquire the Tupi language as it can also be a discussion of a minority language revitalization.