O processo de escolarização e a identidade polonesa em descendentes de imigrantes numa comunidade do interior do Paraná

Abstract

In this research, we examine the process of schooling and its relationship with the polish identity within a community of polish descendants in the countryside of Paraná. The sample is composed by informants from the city of Mallet, one of the birthplaces of the polish colonization in the State and a city in which the polish culture is strongly present up until nowadays, whether in the architecture, in craftwork, in religious rituals and in the use of the polish language. In the first chapter of this dissertation, we delineate a brief overview of the history of Poland and the polish emigration to Brazil and to Paraná. In the second chapter, we discuss the schools during the colonization period, describing the pinnacle of the bilingual schools and its decadence with the monolingual politics during the nationalism period with the prohibition of teaching in foreign languages in the country. In the third chapter, we discuss the elemental relationship between language, culture and identity according to the theoretical contributions of Hall (2015) and Bauman (1999, 2005). The concepts of processes of identification and plural identities of Hall, in contrast to a central and unique identity, and of liquid modernity of Bauman, in which the identity of the subjects adapts to the situations, support our analysis of the paradox between the permanence of the culture and the polish identity in the interaction of the members within the community and its weakening in external interactions. The sample of the research belongs to the Banco de dados Variação Linguística de Fala Eslava – VARLINFE and is constituted by sociolinguistics interviews with polish and Ukrainian descendants from seven inland cities from Paraná: Cruz Machado, Irati, Ivaí, Mallet, Rebouças, Rio Azul and Prudentópolis. Thirteen informants with polish descendance were selected from the Mallet Sample of the VARLINFE and, after the analysis of their interviews, excerpts that relates to our objective were transcribed. The compiled data shows the persistence of the polish language in the community’s oral modality, the consequent bilingualism, the learning of Portuguese in the schools and the linguistic prejudice that the speakers endure. They also illustrate that, even with the Brazilian monolingual policy and the dismiss of the linguistic situation of these Brazilians in the process of schooling, there is the maintenance of both the polish culture and language inside the researched community, and that a strong process of identification with the polish culture remains with the Brazilian speakers.