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LANGUAGE POLICIES
POLÍTICAS LINGUÍSTICAS
Resumo: As leituras de Ribeiro (1947, 1987), Wartburg (1950), Silva Neto (1952), Teyssier (1980), Mattoso
(1982) e Mattos e Silva (1988) nos ensinam, com riqueza de detalhes, a história de Portugal, encetando com a sua
fundação à expansão marítima, promovida pelo infante D. Henrique, em 1415. Essas leituras nos mostram também os
primeiros passos de uma política linguística, a exemplo do estabelecimento de normas linguísticas (ortografia e
gramática) para distinguir a língua portuguesa das demais. Séculos mais tarde, em outros territórios e por conta de
outras políticas, há a criação de dois exames internacionais para aferir proficiência em língua portuguesa: o CELPE-
Bras (exame criado pelo Brasil) e os exames do sistema CAPLE(criado por Portugal). Para Rajagopalan (2013) e
Canaragajah (2013) as políticas linguísticas devem ser estudadas por cientistas políticos, não por outra área. Com
respeitosa discordância, mostrarei, com base em Scaramucci (1995, 1999), Dell’Isola et al. (2003), Dell’Isola (2014)
Diniz (2014), como a criação desses dois exames parte de um anseio linguístico que, para existir, deve se resvalar em
uma estrutura política; assim, não se excluindo de uma proposta expansionista e, de certa forma, imperialista e quais
os diálogos que esses exames estabelecem com a ideia de lusofonia, globalização e geopolítica.
Palavras-chave: Políticas linguísticas; Geopolítica; Língua Portuguesa
Abstract: The readings of Ribeiro (1947, 1987), Wartburg (1950), Silva Neto (1952), Teyssier (1980),
Mattoso (1982) and Mattos e Silva (1988) provides with vivid colors details of the history of Portugal, beginning with
its foundation to the sea expansion promoted by D. Henrique, in 1415. Such important readings also help show the
first steps of language policies, as the establishment of linguistics standards (orthography and grammar) to distinguish
the Portuguese Language from others. Centuries later, in other lands and due to other policies, there is the creation of
two international exams to test proficiency in Portuguese language: CELPE-Bras (exam created by Brazil) and the
exams of the CAPLE system (created by Portugal). Rajagopalan (2013) and Canagarajah (2013) debates over the
difference among ‘language policy’ and ‘language politics’. To both authors what there is in geopolitics might be
called ‘language politics’. The authors are also agreeable to the fact that ‘language politics’ must be studied in the
field of political science. With respectful disagreement, I will use lessons from historical linguistics to set a timeline
of historical actions involving language and politics in the past of the Portuguese language to demonstrate how these
studies could be done in the linguistics field, and how these actions categorize language planning (HAUGEN, 1961).
Furthermore, based on Scaramucci (1995, 1999), Dell’Isola et al. (2003), Dell’Isola (2014) and Diniz (2014), I will
show how the creation of these two exams is also part of language planning, but on a different perspective; a form of
language planning that has its base set on a linguistic wish that, to exist, must rely on a political structure; therefore,
complying with an expansionist and imperialistic view.
To the first grammarian of Portuguese language, Fernão de Oliveira ([1536]1988), the users
of a language “make” the language. Being a descriptivist, his original words do not refer to
prescription, but I believe it is possible to add this extension.
This shows that language planning is not done to meet users’ needs. Actually, sometimes
they reflect the opposite direction of the linguistic reality, forcing a division between spoken
(informal, creative, spontaneous) and written (formal, factual, planned) language.
A sociohistorical narrative of language planning in the Portuguese language is
amalgamated with the history of the Portuguese empire and its expansion. Being the Portuguese
Empire formed in the 12th century, it would portrait a long historical account. For this reason, I
will call attention to actions that somehow involves language, based on Ribeiro (1947, 1987),
Wartburg (1950), Silva Neto (1952), Teyssier (1980), Mattoso (1982), Mattos e Silva (1988) and
Castro (1991).
1147: First Portuguese expansionist politics. Now independent from the king of León
and Castile [Spain], by the Treaty of Zamora, the shire became the Kingdom of Portugal. Its king,
1
Available at: https://www.azleg.gov/constitution/?article=2. Accessed on Dec. 2017
2
Available at: http://policy.arizona.edu/taxonomy/term/4. Accessed on Dec. 2017
Don Afonso Henriques, expanded the lands by expelling the Muslims and conquering the lands of
Santarén and Lisbon; in 1157 he did the same with the lands of Alcácer do Sal, followed by the
conquest of Évora, in 1165.
1214: First movement towards a language policy. The language spoken and written was
known as galego-portugues (a language in-between Portuguese and Galician). Little by little the
users of the language were writing texts that would differ the language from outside the boarders
of the Portuguese kingdom, Galician. The 1175 text Noticia de Fiadores (a promise of payment, a
bill) was the first, followed by 1196 Ora faz host’o senhor de Navarra (a ballad), 1211 Noticia do
Torto (a non-literary narrative accounting an injustice made), and 1214 Testamento de Don Afonso
II (Don Afonso the 2nd’s will).
1415: The second Portuguese expansionist politics. The infant Don Henrique begins the
sea expansion of the Portuguese kingdom, beginning with Ceuta, in the North of Africa (1415).
This movement set Portugal as the forerunner of sea expansion, and possessor of the navigation
charts to the waters only sailed by its people.
1536-1552: First language politics. In 1536 Fernão de Oliveira writes the first
(descriptive) grammar of the Portuguese language. In 1540 João de Barros writes the first
prescriptive grammar of the Portuguese language. This grammar was adopted by the Portuguese
government. According to Cantarino (2008), it was the first didactic illustrated book in the world
and was used to teach Portuguese in future centuries over the colonies.
These historical examples (being it made by the users or regulated by an institution)
demonstrate an intricate relation between language and politics, and how one can serve another. It
is important to highlight that it is a rather symbiotic interaction than a hierarchical one. The
language written in the grammars and texts had to be acknowledge ad quem, i.e. by a superior
instance. But this superior instance also needed ‘that’ language to expand its territories,
conquest/overthrow a people (and their culture) and maintain in that place a new language and
culture, thus accumulating symbolic capital (BOURDIEU, 1986).
The previous facts are examples of how long/well-established the process of language
planning of the Portuguese language is. Language planning also has to do with taking ownership
of local lexicon and syntactic features but ensuring the recognition and perpetuation of the standard
language. Once the Portuguese kingdom became an empire, conquering lands all over the globe,
how to measure the impacts and foresee the challenges of the language in those areas?
This task can be done with the aid of geopolitics. To Daniel Deudney, responsible for the
entry ‘geopolitics’3 on the online Encyclopaedia Britannica, geopolitics is the “analysis of the
geographic influences on power relationships in international relations”.
Rajagopalan (2008) and Muller (2008) defend the term ‘geopolitics of language’, once it
is more focused on the effects of language (language planning, language ideologies etc) across
countries. This is an important understanding for those who view some languages as tools for
communication, such as a lingua franca.
Geopolitics of language has to do with the politics concerning/towards language from a
country to the same country and from a country to others. An illustration of this are the official
languages and the regulations to its recognition, establishment and broadcasting. Having an official
language means that all documents (to be considered as documents) must be written in that
language. That may cause some tension in trading countries. I suspect that is the reason for England
not to have an official language.
Standardized tests are great tools in geopolitics. Their existence shows the interest of
people from one country in another. They also play an important role in diplomacy with countries
that speak different languages as well as with countries ‘united’ by the same language. I agree with
Oliveira (2004): proficiency tests are political-linguistic instruments of first magnitude” (p. 165).
They show a contemporary way of language appropriation made by the national states that now
take command of language circulation, on language planning (deciding which varieties should be
part of their corpus, thus being tested), or on political planning (ensuring by the means of
international agreement the monopoly of the official presence of an specific language in certain
foreign countries).
In these terms, they are responsible for certifying foreigners who are and who are not
proficient in the language; therefore, able or unable to apply for job positions or enter universities,
for example. There may be contestations of different nature concerning these tests. In countries
3
Available at: https://www.britannica.com/topic/geopolitics. Accessed on Jan. 2018.
that share the same language and have different exams, the question imposed is: why not having
one only test?
This situation happens in English speaking countries, with the exams TOEFL (most
accepted inside the U.S) and IELTS (most accepted outside the U.S). It is a similar case to Spanish
language and the exams DELE (designed by Spain and accepted world-wide) and CELU (designed
by Argentina and accepted there and in some countries in South-America). And it is not different
to Portuguese language and the exams CELPE-Bras (designed and accepted in Brazil) and the tests
produced by the system CAPLE (designed by Portugal and accepted there and in some [ex]
colonies, except in Brazil).
In Portuguese speaking countries it is not that different. The Portuguese language, just like
any language, has been deterritorialized. Due to this effect new, creative and unpredictable
linguistical realizations are made possible. There are now different ways of being and acting in the
Portuguese language.
Orthography, teaching, implementation and promotion of the Portuguese language all over
the globe is part of the language politics and policies (OLIVEIRA, 1999, 2008, 2013, 2016). In
the 21st century the language politics involving the Portuguese language are not quite like the ones
from the past. Knowing what the Portuguese language “is”, it is necessary to create strategies to
assess how proficient one is the language.
For the so-called native speakers of Portuguese language there are different test in the
school system of each country responsible for that. I say “so-called” because there is a huge debate
concerning the term native speaker. Gadet and Pêcheux (2004) like to think about the users of a
language as “citizens”. That would put at the same level: people born in the same speaking country,
people from different countries sharing the ‘same’ language, people who are learning the language,
heritage speakers etc. To the authors (2004, p.37), “to become citizens, the subjects must […] free
themselves from historical particularities that thwarts them: their local traditions, ancestors
conceptions, their ‘prejudices’… and their native language”. Having said that, it is necessary to
remind of the distinction made by Payer (2007) concerning national language X native language.
According to the author they refer to:
distinct language dimensions concerning memory, which presents distinct discursive
operation, having different forms of participation in the processes of subjective
constitution. Focusing in particular in the history of Brazilian Portuguese, we can assume
that different politics work(ed) to the construction of a national dimension for this
language, as it is shown in different works. More recently, however, especially after the
configuration of the Southern Common Market (MERCOSUL) it has been possible to
observe the recrudescence of language politics (more, or less explicit) that build other
dimension for Brazilian Portuguese: the one of transnational language (DINIZ, 2010,
2012; ZOPPI-FONTANA, 2009, 2010). It is, in the words of Zoppi-Fontana (2009) “the
status of a national language that trespasses the boarders of State-Nation in which it was
historically constituted and with which it maintains strong metonymical ties4. (p.119)
This excerpt makes possible to visualize the geopolitics of the Portuguese language. Payer,
however, does not mention the fact that besides sharing the same name, the language spoken in
Brazil is very different from the one spoken in Portugal. It has to do with mainly cultural
differences that play distinctive roles on language and the ways of viewing the language. In other
words, different ways of assessing a language that is similar only in the name. This similarity is
responsible to sew under the same name language-cultures totally different.
Bearing these premises in mind, we now see that there are different ways of being in the
Portuguese language. The challenge is: how to assess language proficiency5 to those who do not
have Portuguese as their national language?
Not only in Portuguese language, but also in many others, language proficiency is
assessed/tested and certified by exams made by institutions somewhat linked to the government.
These exams are linguistic bulwarks of a national language and bring with themselves the tincture
of their nation because they bring their countries as authors of themselves (DINIZ, 2014). On what
concerns the Portuguese language there are:
1- The exams designed by the Center for Assessment of Portuguese as a Foreign Language
(Centro de Avaliação de Português Língua Estrangeira – CAPLE), made based on the
European Portuguese and has it assessment scales set on the Common European
Framework of Reference for Languages.
2- CELPE-BRAS: designed by the Anísio Teixeira National Institute of Educational
Research (Instituto Nacional de Estudos e Pesquisas Educacionais Anísio Teixeira –
4
Translated by me.
5
There is vast literature with the term ‘linguistic proficiency’. This term may refer to knowledge
of structures of the language. I understand ‘language proficiency’ as a way of minimizing this conflict,
understanding language not only in structural specifications, but also cultural and of usage.
INEP). It is acknowledged by the Ministry for International Relations and it is based
on the Brazilian Portuguese.
Each different exam has its own layout and ideas about assessment, proficiency and its
implications. In the following part I will discuss the different views on assessment, proficiency
and language and their implications in language geopolitics and language education.
Since its creation Portugal demonstrated its will to grow. Despite having one of the oldest
established borders of Europe, its growth trespassed itself and they gained the world. Wherever
the empire would go, the language was behind. They invested time and money to the
systematization of the language. Language that is no longer from the Portuguese people, but the
world’s. Other politics are now made for the expansion and maintenance of this language,
wherever it is spoken. Portuguese speaking countries in Africa whose linguistic (syntactical,
morphological, phonological etc.) systems were based on the European one are now investing on
describing THEIR Portuguese, so that they can have their own grammar, dictionary etc. In other
words, we can see the language planning happening.
The aforementioned example of disagreement between Brazil and Portugal illustrates a
language politics of no co-participation, which is held up to present days. Those who hold a
CELPE-Bras’ certificate and intend to move to Portugal need to take the Portuguese test, and vice-
versa.
The new language politics involving the Portuguese language are very different from the
first ones. We go from diversity (many languages) to unity (Portuguese language), and now a
diversity within unity. The existence of this many Portuguese languages are essential to the
configuration of a new geopolitics of language. Nevertheless, the dichotomy Brazil/Portugal is still
strong enough to write the rules for this linguistic game. Hope for a different way of playing relies
6
For the purposes of this paper, I chose to talk about one only.
7
Due to the length of this paper, it is not possible to provide an overview of proficiency in
academic works. However, it can be found in Lado (1961), Hymes (1972), Cummins (1979), Stern
(1983), Farhady (1983), Thomas (1994), Hawkey and Barker (2004), Kennedy and Thorp (2007).
on the African countries that speak Portuguese. Perhaps this force would be strong enough to make
the Portuguese language a red blood cell, an anucleate cell.
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