Language, society, ethnicity and culture: a sociolinguistic study Cinta-Larga people, Rio Seco Indigenous community, Juína / MT.
Keywords: Sociolinguistics. Indian people. Cinta-Larga. Indigenous culture and language. Bilingualism.
In the light of Sociolinguistics, we develop a study on the Cinta-Larga people focusing on two languages in contact: the Cinta-Larga originated from the Tupi trunk belonging to the Mondé linguistic family and the official Brazilian Portuguese language spoken in a situation of bilingualism, in the Rio Seco community located in the Serra Morena indigenous land, municipality of Juína, MT. For carrying this on, we used the Variationist Sociolinguistics line of research based on studies by national and international researchers and sociolinguists. Considering the Indians´ culture, the objective was to analyze the sociolinguistic behavior of the Cinta-Larga Indian people, in relation to the concept of languages in contact. To achieve this purpose, we used the method based on the synchronic axis of the language supported by the studies of several scholars, and the Methodology included bibliographical, documentary, ethnographic field research and qualitative and quantitative research. For data analysis we mobilized methodological approaches from various researchers in this area and those of the specific Guide 12, we selected male and female informants and divided them into three age groups: young, adult and elderly, who we interviewed by means of a semi-structured questionnaire. The result of the research showed that the Tupi Mondé (Cinta-Larga) language spoken by the Cinta-Larga people, in the Rio Seco community, fits into the situation of a living and fully active language. Furthermore, we found out that it was a complex and multifaceted linguistic context, and that the elderly, although they speak Portuguese a little, have a certain distrust towards it. Furthermore, they see the school as a place for teaching the Portuguese language, while the family and elders are ideal instances to teach the indigenous language. We also found out that the use of the Portuguese language in the aforementioned community is due to the need for communication in specific places and contexts, such as the market, health centers, and the legislative environment for claiming rights and workspaces where people sell handicrafts, places where the Portuguese language predominates in interaction situations. However, the majority of informants reported that they used both languages in their daily lives. The analyses results indicated that there are languages in contact and bilingualism in communication within and outside the researched village. We concluded that learning the indigenous language at school is important to avoid the risk of its extinction, because younger indigenous people, unlike the elders, are not committed to preserving the language and culture of the original peoples.