Português como Língua de Herança: famílias na diáspora brasileira e sua relação com a Língua Portuguesa

Abstract

This study aims to understand Portuguese as a Heritage Language taking place in expatriate Brazilian families. We investigated aspects of Portuguese as a Heritage Language, focusing on Brazilians living in the diaspora and who have children, in the family dimension: i) the family interactions in Portuguese; ii) the family insertion into the local Brazilian community if one exists; iii) the family contact with Brazilian culture and iv) the Brazilian family member motivations for transmitting Portuguese as a Heritage Language to their children. First of all, we present the Heritage Language concept (CUMMINS, 1983) by distinguishing it from the Mother Tongue, Second Language, Foreign Language (SPINASSÉ, 2006), and Additional Language concepts (SCHLATTER & GARCEZ, 2009). Second, we present the research socio-historic context, addressing aspects of the Portuguese and Brazilian diasporas responsible for the emergence of Portuguese as a Heritage Language scenarios. Thus, we enter into reflections on identities (HALL, 2009, 2014; RAJAGOPALAN, 1998) and cultures (KRAMSCH, 1998) of Portuguese speakers as a Heritage Language, since we understand that identities and cultures are intrinsic to one's languages. Besides, we wrote a bibliographic review of teaching Portuguese as a Heritage Language field of study(MELO-PFEIFER, 2018; MENDES, 2012, 2015). We also present the research methodology and the analyzes conducted in this qualitative research (YIN, 2016). In the current applied linguistics investigation, we researched the relations between the Brazilian families living in the diaspora and the Portuguese language. We found that (Brazilian) Portuguese as a Heritage Language is a piece of evidence in the Brazilian diaspora. We also found a proportional relation between i) the Portuguese language usage in the researched families' homes and ii) the relevance given by the research participant to his mother tongue and the learning of Portuguese by his children.