A constituição da língua portuguesa como elemento de identidade nacional no Portugal institucional contemporâneo: raça, capital e globalização

Abstract

Based on documentary research at the Torre do Tombo National Archives, and employing the perspective of glottopolitics and critical sociolinguistics, this paper analyzes the role of the Portuguese language as an element of national cohesion and internationalization through two major linguistic-politic events: the National Commission of Centennials (1938-1943) and the National Commission for the Commemorations of the Portuguese Discoveries (1986-2002). In contrast with other states, in which different nations and languages are under the same legal-political system, and in which the oppression of linguistic minorities became less accentuated as we approach the present, the Portuguese case works differently. In the context of globalization and transition to democracy, the value of Portuguese is seen to mobilize a type of re-nationalizing identity through processes of racialization of the colonized population and of symbolic detachment from Portuguese emigrated communities.

Keywords

• globalization
• language ideologies
• linguistic identity
• Portuguese language
• racialization
• sociolinguistics