Aprender italiano: identidade em (re)construção entre língua e cultura em contexto formal.

Abstract

This research was based in studies about identity and bilingualism and it has as its main focus descendants of Italian immigrants who live in Cascavel city in the State of Paraná. In this research, these people are classified into young generation - students of Italian - and adult generation - who represent memory aspects of the Italian immigrants history of those who migrate from Rio Grande do Sul to other Brazilian regions. The study carried out in this community let us know some of the linguistic attitudes that these people display towards the Italian language. In order to collect data, an ethnographic approach was adopted by using the following research instruments: a) pre-planned and semi-structured interviews with the students, the adult generation and the school coordinator; b) and a field diary. Through the interviews we tried to elicit from the students and the adult generation the meaning of the Italian language in their lives as well as the links the students establish between the Italian language study and reasons for such formal study; the interviews with the adults generation helped us to understand How the first nuclear family displacements happened. The study shows that the students do not deny their Italian roots but the reasons for studying Italian are due to modern society factors they see in this language the opportunity for social and economic rise. Regarding the adult generation, all the three participants state that the need for finding new places to make a living led them to follow their spouses and other ways. This made them increase their contact with the Brazilian language and culture ending up into a complete assimilation, especially in the case of one participant. However, we may also say that the other two participants have assimilated the Brazilian language and culture in less proportion than the other first as they still try to preserve the Italian language and culture in their family relations.