The Dynamics of Language and Inequality in Education

Social and Symbolic Boundaries in the Global South

Joel Austin Windle, Dánie de Jesus, Lesley Bartlett

• Publisher: Multilingual Matters
• Year: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781788926966
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Administration

This book contributes new perspectives from the Global South on the ways in which linguistic and discursive boundaries shape inequalities in educational contexts, ranging from Amazonian missions to Mongolian universities. Through critical ethnographic and sociolinguistic analysis, the chapters explore how such boundaries contribute to the geopolitics of colonialism, capitalism and myriad, interwoven, forms of social life that structure both oppression and resistance. Boundaries are examined across time and space as relational constructs that mark the terms upon which admission to groups, institutions, territories, or practices are granted. The studies further present alternative educational approaches that demonstrate the potential for agency and transgression, highlighting moments of boundary crossing that disrupt existing linguistic ideologies, language policies and curriculum structures.

Section 1: The Shifting Boundaries of Linguistic Inequality

1 Across Linguistic Boundaries: Language as a Dimension of Power in the Colonization of the Brazilian Amazon

Dennys Silva-Reis and Marcos Bagno

In this chapter we seek to present a concise account (among many possible) of the linguistic policies that constituted one of the tools of colonization and exploitation of the Amazon by the Portuguese, including through the religious instruction imposed by Catholic missionaries. These linguistic policies – explicit or implicit – were based, initially, on the training and use of interpreters and, subsequently, on the systematization of a Tupi-based língua geral (lingua franca), which became the most important instrument for interaction between colonizers (especially Catholic missionaries) and the indigenous population. The widespread use of this lingua franca (known as nheengatu) did not eliminate the need for translators and interpreters: as will be seen, nheengatu was imposed on different ethnic groups who spoke languages from different language families, in a process marked by the physical and symbolic violence that characterizes a history of colonization over more than four centuries, beginning at the end of the 15th century.

Defining the territorial boundaries of the Amazon, implies several difficulties. The principle works of historiography of translation in Brazil present panoramic views that do not rigorously identify what is distinctive to particular spaces within the colonial territories. In publications by authors such as Milton (2001), Wyler (2003), Metcalf (2005), Barbosa and Wyler (2011), for example, the term Brasil/Brazil encapsulates a single historical-geographical entity, despite the profound ecological, demographic, ethnic, cultural, linguistic, etc. differences among the many geographical (and historical) subdivisions that it is possible to identify in such a vast territorial expanse and period of time. As we shall argue in the first section below, Portuguese possessions in South America did not constitute a homogeneous whole or a political-administrative unit: for a long time, the name Brazil was applied to a portion of those colonial possessions that did not include the Amazon. In addition, the colonization of the Amazon under Portuguese rule began than the rest of ‘Portuguese’ America, almost a century later.

In the period and space discussed in this chapter, translation and teaching are terms intrinsically linked to one another. The main objective of the missionaries, especially the Jesuits (considered in the history of Brazil as the country’s first educators and teachers), was the evangelization of indigenous populations. This could only be done by means of a linguistic policy that would hasten integration of indigenous people into religious missions, by, instead of teaching the language of the colonizer, focusing on constructing a lingua franca, based on Tupi, in which conversion to Catholicism could be performed. The schools created by the Jesuits were based on the knowledge of this lingua franca, into which the rudiments of the Catholic faith were translated. From a certain phase, around the second half of the 18th century, a dispute began between those who undertook conversion and teaching through the língua geral and those who supported the implantation of the Portuguese language:

During this tumultuous phase, questionnaires were sent to all sections of the local hierarchies in order to collect the necessary data for the adoption of new solutions. They deal with matters related to the sharing of missions and their territory amongst the various [teaching] institutions, their competence, and the curriculum for indigenous peoples (including the Portuguese language or more advanced studies, with the Order of Mercedarians even proposing Latin). The pedagogical, political and ecclesiastical arguments typical of each segment were reflected in their answers. Likewise, in addition to the different perspectives on the configuration of civil and ecclesiastical powers, different positions emerged concerning the capacities of the indigenous peoples, the learning of the catechism, and an elementary, technical or even more advanced pedagogy. In all domains, language appeared as an important dimension of power. Underlying intentions skillfully crafted speeches that lead, in numerous sectors, to a true tug of war, each side striving to shape the jurisdictional boundaries to suit its own ends. These boundaries change perpetually, depending on the influence of each group at a given moment. (Larcher, 2012: 78–79; our emphasis)

The result of these confrontations, as we know, was to be the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Portuguese colonies and the attempt to impose Portuguese as the only language for conversion and teaching in general. These attempts were frustrated because, as we shall see, língua geral remained in use in the Amazon until the first half of the 19th century.

Teaching could only exist during the long colonial phase because there was, firstly, translation and interpretation, and subsequently the creation and imposition of a língua geral that would serve as an instrument of catechism – that is, education was deeply linked to a colonial language policy. The use of an indigenous language for the process of conversion – spiritual and cultural in the broadest sense – mirrored the profound mixing of influences that would lead to the emergence of a new culture in the Amazonian territory. As we will argue throughout this chapter, the indigenous peoples were not passive recipients of a doctrine and a culture the interactions were intense and radical on both sides:

Although the priests insisted on the public conversion of the chiefs and on the immediate marginalization of the shamans, all of the customs and knowledge necessary for day-to-day survival were tolerated, and even transmitted within the villages. These related to food, methods of hunting, fishing and harvesting, canoeing, therapeutic knowledge, ritual dances and, above all, the use of a common indigenous language, the língua geral or nheengatu. (Arenz, 2012: 162)

Teaching and translation, thus, existed in a double movement of transfer, resignification and recomposition of culture by the indigenous population for the colonizers and by the colonizers for the indigenous population. This whole process ‘profoundly influenced the imagination and way of life of the Amazonians, even beyond the colonial period’ (Arenz, 2010: 161):

Despite the mutual misunderstandings between Indians and missionaries, the new way of living and believing that emerged in those missionary communities, from the 17th century onwards, proved to be relatively long lasting, since it was the origin of the popular cultures practiced up until the present day in the Amazon. The amalgam of Iberian and Amerindian elements that characterize these cultures results mainly from the ‘gaps’ left open by both the superficiality of conversion and the tenacious attachment of the indigenous peoples to their ancestral traditions. (Arenz, 2012: 171)

Dealing with the history of oral interpretation is a task that involves a number of theoretical and practical issues. Alonso (2015) notes that interpretation has constituted, throughout history, an activity capable of organizing/structuring those events and situations in which the actors, principal or secondary, do not share the same cultural and linguistic identity. Moreover, ‘the activity of the interpreter, as much as that of the translator, has contributed consciously or unconsciously to forging a common identity, particularly in those political and ideological projects that have imperialistic ambitions’ (2015: 173). We also take into account the fact that the history of translation and interpretation in colonial times that began its construction in the West in recent decades, and is thus presented with almost exclusively colonial criteria regarding its periodization, ignoring or relegating – as cultural and postcolonial studies highlight – cultural and political periods of great importance to other societies, as if there had never been a translation or interpretation before the colony (Alonso, 2015: 178).

The Shifting Political Boundaries of the Amazon

The title of this article contains, in a historical perspective, an anachronism: the designation of ‘Brazilian’ for the Amazon of the colonial period. In fact, so-called Portuguese America was composed of two distinct administrative entities: the State of Brazil, and the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão. The notion of a ‘Brazil’ along the lines of the current sovereign state emerged only in 1823, after the state of Grã-Pará and Maranhão merged with the State of Brazil, which had proclaimed independence from Portugal a year earlier. Official historiography, however, constructed within a typical nationalist ideology, has concealed this division of the colonial territory to create the myth of a territorial unit that has supposedly existed since the origins of ‘Brazil’. The vast majority of Brazilians do not know that, for more than three centuries, the term ‘Brazil’ applied exclusively to the central-southern part of Portuguese America. The victory of this ideology is revealed even in the extreme difficulty of finding a reliable cartographic representation of that territorial division.

The same ideological rewriting of the past has sought to erase the sociolinguistic complexity of the historical conjuncture that gave birth to modern Brazil. In this rewriting of the past, the Portuguese language appears to have begun its triumphant expansion and its absolute dominion over ‘Brazil’ from the very moment the first Portuguese navigator stepped onto American soil. This was held to be due to the ‘axiological and pragmatic superiority of Western culture that led to the victory of the Portuguese language in Brazil over its indigenous and African competitors’ (Elia, 1979: 18), words that echo those of Serafim da Silva Neto, according to whom:

the victory of the Portuguese language was not due to its violent imposition by the ruling class. It is explained by its superior prestige, which forced individuals to use the language that expressed the best form of civilization. (Silva Neto, 1950: 61)

For both authors, the process that led to the hegemony of Portuguese in Brazil is described as self-explanatory and even peaceful (‘it was not due to imposition by the ruling class’), but reliance on the notion of ‘victory’ presupposes conflicts and disputes – there must have been losers to winners – and the use of ‘competitors’ by Elia shows that, in fact, Brazil’s sociolinguistic history is a history of struggles and battles and, above all, of systematic genocides and, with them, of linguicides. Thus, even though he resorts to the idea of ‘victory’, José Honório Rodrigues (1985: 42) emphasizes that ‘the cultural process that imposed one victorious language over the others was not so peaceful or easy. It cost unprecedented effort, the blood of the rebels, suicides, lives’, because ‘there was, indeed, a permanent state of war’.

Thus, what we call here the ‘Brazilian Amazon’ roughly equates, in the colonial period, to the State of Grão-Pará and Maranhão, an autonomous political-administrative entity, which only shared with the State of Brazil the status of colony of the Portuguese empire. The only reason for the anachronistic use of the adjective ‘Brazilian’ is to make clear to the reader that we are not dealing here with a wider Amazon, but only the portion of this vast territory that was occupied and colonized by the Portuguese and that, much later, was joined to Brazil, a term which has come to refer to the entire extent of the former Portuguese possessions in South America. Ultimately, the term Amazon covers a vast territorial extension that basically equates to the Amazon basin, the largest on the planet. This basin lies within the political boundaries of eight countries (Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Peru, Suriname and Venezuela) and an overseas possession (French Guyana) covering more than 7 million square kilometers. As an administrative designation, there exist, in Peru and Colombia, ‘departments’ called Amazonas, in Venezuela an Amazonas state; and in Ecuador a region called Oriente (‘the East’) or Amazonas. In Brazil there is the state of Amazonas, the largest in the federation, but the term Amazon (Amazônia in Portuguese) applies to a much wider area of the national territory. To define the extent of governmental action in the region, Law 1,806, dated 6 January 1953, established the concept of ‘Legal Amazon’ (Amazônia Legal), which occupies a total of more than five million square kilometers, equivalent to 59% of the Brazilian national territory, but home to just 12% of the total population.¹

From Linguistic Diversity to Forced Learning of Línguas Gerais (General Languages)

The linguistic diversity of the future Portuguese colonies in South America was indeed great. According to Aryon Rodrigues (2006: 24–25), there would have been 1,273 indigenous languages present in the territory of the future Brazil at the time of the Portuguese arrival, more than half of these (about 700) in the Amazon region alone. The large quantity of languages constituted a large obstacle for religious instruction aimed at the conversion to Catholicism of the indigenous peoples, and also for the occupation of the territory by the Portuguese Crown, which was also interested in the enslavement of indigenous labor. This impasse was resolved by the adoption of a language – Tupinambá – spoken on a stretch of the coast of the present state of Pará, near the mouth of the Amazon River, which become what was to be called língua geral (general language), a sort of lingua franca. The same process took place in the southern part of Portuguese America, where a língua geral also emerged. During the colonial period, therefore, there were two ‘general languages’: the língua geral of the Amazon and the língua geral of São Paulo. Both belonged to the group of languages known as Tupi, languages that were used in an extensive section of the Brazilian coast, from the current state of São Paulo to the mouth of the Amazon river, in Pará. Speakers of other languages that were not in the group were called Tapuias by the Tupi language speakers, a designation that was also used by the Portuguese and their descendants.

According to Barros (2003: 88–89):

The emergence of the opposition between Tupi and Tapuia – which mirrored the opposition between Christianized and ‘barbarian’ indigenous peoples – proved to be a product of colonial Indian policy. The Tapuia category – a term of Tupi origin meaning ‘enemy’ – was used in Brazil to refer to non-Tupi indigenous groups, considered barbarians, as opposed to the Tupinambá group or other ‘general language’ nations. In linguistic terms, this took the form of an opposition between língua geral and tapuia or ‘locked’ languages (‘línguas travadas’). [...] The Tupi vs. Tapuia dichotomy was related to the colonial ideology of a common language in a continuous territory. The Tapuia languages – seen as ‘locked’ and ‘barbaric’ – were considered a hindrance to colonization. The expansion of the Tupi – as ‘general’ – over the Tapuia languages reflected the idea that a territory should have only one language.

This preponderance of Tupi on the coast, where colonial occupation was concentrated over a long period (until the discovery of gold in Minas Gerais, at the end of the 17th century), enabled the formation of those ‘general languages’. Both the general Amazonian language (língua geral amazônica, LGA) and the general São Paulo language (língua geral paulista, LGP) were based on varieties of Tupinambá spoken, respectively, on the northern coast (Pará) and on the southern coast (Rio de Janeiro, Espírito Santo). As a result, the two ‘general languages’ were very similar.

The adoption of these languages in the process of religious instruction, conversion (and enslavement) of indigenous peoples followed positions advocated by the Catholic Church, which preached the learning of native languages by missionaries so that conversion could take place in those languages. It was considered more efficient and faster to do this than first to teach the colonizers’ language in order to subsequently preach Christianity in that language. It was thus up to the missionaries, especially the Jesuits,...

Table of contents

• Frontcover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction: The Dynamics of Language and Inequality Joel Windle, Dánie de Jesus and Lesley Bartlett
• Section 1: The Shifting Boundaries of Linguistic Inequality
• 1 Across Linguistic Boundaries: Language as a Dimension of Power in the Colonization of the Brazilian Amazon
• 2 Navigating Soft and Hard Boundaries: Race and Educational Inequality at the Borderlands
• 3 Rural-Urban Divides and Digital Literacy in Mongolian Higher Education
• Section 2: Language, Ideology and Inequality
• 4 A Cycle of Shame: How Shaming Perpetuates Language Inequalities in Dakar, Senegal
• 5 The Role of Shame in Drawing Social Boundaries for Empowerment: ELT in Kiribati
• 6 Native-speakerism and Symbolic Violence in Constructions of Teacher Competence
• 7 Knowledge Politics, Language and Inequality in Educational Publishing
• Section 3: Transgression and Agency
• 8 Decoloniality and Language in Education: Transgressing Language Boundaries in South Africa
• 9 Queering Literacy in Brazil’s Higher Education: Questioning the Boundaries of the Normalized Body
• 10 ‘Saudi Women Are Finally Allowed to Sit Behind the Wheel’: Initial Responses from TESOL Classrooms
• Multilingual Abstracts