LINGUAGEM, SOCIEDADE E CULTURA: UM ESTUDO SOCIOLINGUÍSTICO SOBRE O POVO CINTA-LARGA, COMUNIDADE INDÍGENA RIO SECO, JUÍNA/MT
Sociolinguistics. Indian people. Cinta-Larga. Indigenous culture and language. Bilingualism.
In this dissertation, we developed a sociolinguistic study on the Cinta-Larga people, focusing on the two languages in contact: the Cinta-Larga originating from the Tupi trunk belonging to the Mondé linguistic family and the official Brazilian Portuguese spoken in a situation of bilingualism, in the Rio Seco community located in the Serra Morena indigenous land, municipality of Juína, MT. For this, we used as an input the Variationist Sociolinguistics and investigations by national and international researchers and sociolinguists. Considering the culture of the Cinta-Larga indigenous people, our objective was to analyze their sociolinguistic behavior in relation to the topic languages in contact. The methodological procedures used the Variationist Sociolinguistics, which provides for the collection and analysis of data obtained in field research, and with some ethnographic notes, according to the qualitative and quantitative research, and the steps of a specific Guide. We used the observation of informants supported by the synchronic axis of the spoken language in the year 2023, and selected 12 informants, 6 males and 6 females distributed into three age groups, young, adult and elderly whom we interviewed by using a semi-structured questionnaire. The research results showed that the Tupi Mondé (or Cinta-Larga) language spoken by the Cinta-Larga people of the Rio Seco community fits into the category of a living and fully active language. Furthermore, the linguistic context proved to be complex and multifaceted, and showed that the elderly, although they spoke Portuguese a little, had some difficulties to communicate adequately with that language. Furthermore, they see the school as the suitable place for teaching and acquiring the Portuguese language, while the family and elders should be the ones responsible for teaching the indigenous language. We also found that, in the aforementioned community, that the Portuguese language is essential for communication purposes in specific places, such as health centers, legislative contexts for claiming rights and workspaces, such as markets where people trade crafts and the Portuguese language prevails in such situations. However, the majority of informants reported that they use both languages in their daily lives. The analyses results indicated that there are languages in contact and bilingualism in communication, inside and outside the researched community, and we classified them into three distinct groups, namely, developing bilinguals, stable bilinguals and attractive bilinguals. We concluded that the teaching and acquisition of the indigenous language at school are crucial, because younger aborigines, unlike the older ones, are not committed to preserving the language of the Cinta-Larga people, fact that can decree the extinction of their culture as well.