As línguas em Witmarsum: atitudes linguísticas de alunos em um colégio de campo no contexto multilíngue

Abstract

The present research was carried out in a State College of the Field, a public educational institution located in the city of Palmeira - PR, having as participants six students from the 3rd year of high school (EM). The general objective was to analyze and discuss the interactions established by the students and their linguistic uses in different contexts/situations, as well as to identify relationships between their linguistic impressions, their identities and the context under study. We sought to identify and discuss the attitudes of informants towards the context in which they live and study: the Witmarsum colony, and the degrees of importance they attach to the languages they study or with which they have contact. To this end, we have defined our research problem, namely: What are the impressions, beliefs and linguistic attitudes of students of a college in the countryside in a multilingual context in the interior of Paraná, about the foreign languages taught in the institution and in the context in which they are inserted? As a theoretical reference, in order to discuss the concepts of identity, culture and language policies, we based our discussions on the studies of Hall (2000), Woodward (2000) and Calvet (2002). We highlight the postulates of Coseriu (1982) and Bagno (2007), to discuss the concepts of language. In addition, we discussed notions such as: bilingualism (CROCI, 2011), (RASO, MELLO; ALTENHOFEN, 2011) and (AGUILERA; BUSSE, 2008); multilingualism (OLIVEIRA, 2000); diglossia (FERGUSON, 1972) and code alternation (GUMPERZ, 1982), (SILVA-CORVALÁN, 1989) and (MOZZILLO, 2009). Our discussion of beliefs and attitudes is based on the studies presented by Lambert and Lambert (1981), among others. We consider that our research fits the qualitative character, ethnographic in nature for analyzing social phenomena and processes in a given context, perceiving behaviors and interpretations of individuals in relation to these phenomena (BORTONI-RICARDO, 2008) following the postulates of Sociolinguistics. As an instrument for data collection, we used the semi-structured interview (LÜDKE, 2008) under the parameters pre-established through interview scripts. The data showed that, in addition to recognizing the social and multilingual reality in which they live, the informants have different views on the importance not of teaching German, but of the different approach of the college in relation to the languages that the institution offers. The variable "gender", which conditioned the training of our groups of informants, did not highlight any distinction in the attitude of the students. Among the languages that receive greater prestige are, in fact, German, which is naturally justified by the entire research context, and English, which is possibly due to the implementation of language policies that value and hegemony of this language. We realize the importance of the role of the institution and its language teaching policies, however we emphasize the need to reformulate the curriculum, since, as prescribed by the PPP of the college, the rich and effective training of its students as active and socially developed subjects, is a primary concern.