Shifting Publics and Shifting Alignments in a Sprachinsel of Southern Brazil
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Shifting Publics and Shifting Alignments in a Sprachinsel of Southern Brazil by Claire Elizabeth Insel A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Anthropology) in the University of Michigan 2011 Doctoral Committee: Professor Bruce Mannheim, Chair Professor Andrew J. Shryock Associate Professor Sueann Caulfield Associate Professor Barbra A. Meek Associate Professor Robin M. Queen © Claire Elizabeth Insel 2011 To Marcia Seyler and Paul Insel, who raise(d) me up ii Acknowledgements This is a work of collaboration. It began while applying for graduate school. Working at Annual Reviews, I met many inspiring anthropologists, among them Bambi Schieffelin, who helped me develop the topic of German speakers in Brazil. When I asked what to do with myself between leaving Annual Reviews and starting school, Jane Hill advised me to go somewhere and learn a language. I went to São Paulo, where Sílvia Coelho Prado hosted me for seven months, speaking only slow Portuguese even though her English was fluent. At Michigan, my colleagues and friends Heloise Finch-Boyer, Christie Davis, Jessica Smith Rolston, Susanne Unger, Emily Hein, Laura Brown, Simon Jo-Keeling, Sherina Feliciano-Santos, Kirstin Swagman, Anna Genina, Margarita Huayhua, Kara Madison, Aneeqa Aqeel, Yong-Hee Chun, Jennie Cain, and Patrick Tonks among others pushed me along intellectually and emotionally. I grew tremendously in courses, Ling Lab meetings, conferences, and in teaching undergraduates. My writing groups with Elana Buch, Simon Jo-Keeling, Xochitl Ruiz, Henrike Florusbosch, and Alice Gates eased much pain, especially at the end. Other mentors and faculty who nurtured me further include Hartmut Rastalsky, Carol Mukhopadhyay, Tom and Jean Roth, Lee Donaghey, Bambi Schieffelin, Fernando Lara, Acrisio Pires, and Sally Thomason. Laurie Marx, thank you! I especially thank my committee for seeing me through preliminary examinations, grant writing, fieldwork, and the dissertation. Thank you to Bruce Mannheim for continual encouragement and guidance; Barb Meek for breaking down some of the barrier between faculty and graduate students, comments on my work, and reflections on what it means to be an academic; Andrew Shryock for buoying my spirits and helping me rephrase my thoughts to make them sound coherent and intriguing; Robin Queen for very iii thorough, clear comments that always made me rethink everything I was doing; and Sueann Caulfield for giving me models of how to work hard. This dissertation was possible through a National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (0714904). Additional support in three Foreign Language Area Study fellowships, the Honors Program fellowship, and the Sweetland Writing Center Dissertation Institute got me to where I am now. I am also grateful for the chance to teach for the German and Anthropology Departments. In Brazil, the 12 families that hosted me—the Horns, Brand and Oliveiras, Werles, Bukwievics, Klebers, Rausches, Gernhardts, Blumes, Grings, Schabarums, Baumhardts, and Coelho Prados—generously opened their homes to me, some for a few days, others for months. Danke scheen. Dolorda Biegelmeier, Paula Leão, and Marli Brand helped me transcribe the recorded conversations. Marli in particular was my friend and companion in setting up opportunities for living and recording in Dois Irmãos. Verônica Baumhardt has also always been a very good friend, giving me a space of refuge in Porto Alegre and any other support I asked for. She, along with Tatiana Farias, were innovative Portuguese teachers at the Schutz and Kanomata School. Professor Cléo Altenhofen invited me to participate in his linguistics circles and gave me access to his previous and ongoing work, computers, and libraries. He gave me direction on my project and had the ESCRITHU group discuss one of my transcriptions. Muitíssimo obrigada à Moisés Schabarum Dall Agnol, Andréia Bohn, Inara Weber, Beto Klein, Marcos Klabunde, Rosane Werkhausen Luersen, the Success English School, Grupo Reviver, and the wonderful members of Coral Cantares. My United States family is my real backbone. Thank you, Philip, for your statistics, ideals, and belly laughs; Michelle, for fine meals and family cohesion; and Mom and Dad, for unconditional editing, pep talks, and cultivation of our love for analyzing other humans. I dedicate this dissertation to you. To Michael, for bringing me home. iv Table of Contents Dedication…………………………………………………………………...ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………… iii List of Figures…………………………………...…………………………..vi List of Tables………………………………………………………………..vii List of Appendices…………………………………………………………. viii Abstract…………………………………………………………………….. ix Chapter 1: Introduction…………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 2: A Brief History of German-Speaking Immigration to Brazil… 32 Chapter 3: Contemporary Dois Irmãos ………………………………….… 58 Chapter 4: A Social History of Hunsrückish…………………………...…. 85 Chapter 5: Interpersonal Alignments Through Codeswitching ……….……124 Chapter 6: Temporal Aspects of Personal Alignments………………….… 160 Chapter 7: Spatial Alignments: Here and There…………………………... 192 Chapter 8: Conclusion …………………………………………………… 246 Appendices.………………………………………………………………... 257 References Cited …………………………………………..………………. 311 v List of Figures Figure 1. Map of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil…………………...…………………….…33 Figure 2: Map of Dois Irmãos, Rio Grande do Sul………………………….………….59 Figure 3: Photographs of Downtown, Dois Irmãos.. …………………………………...61 Figure 4: Map of the Hunsrück Region.................. ...........…………….........……….. 86 Figure 5: Reported German Speech…………………………………………………… 110 Figure 6: Reported German Speech by Locale …………………………………….….. 112 Figure 7: What the Parents Spoke …………..………………………………………… 113 Figure 8: Relationship of German Spoken by Parent to German Spoken by Children...114 Figure 9: Photographs of the Exterior of the Lotto Store……………………………... 129 Figure 10: Photographs of the Interior of the Lotto Store. ……………………………. 130 Figure 11: Photographs of Architectural Renovation Projects……………………...… 163 Figure 12. Grupo Reviver‘s Folkloric Dances…………………………………………. 197 Figure 13. Recreational Dancing During a Meeting…………………………………… 198 vi List of Tables Table 1: German Immigration to Brazil 1824-1969……………………………… 52 Table 2: Second-Person Pronouns ……………………………………………….. 93 Table 3: Agreement Marking on Finite Verb sinn……………………………….…. 95 Table 4: Reported German Speech………………………………………………… 110 Table 5: Age Distribution of German Speakers …………………………………… 111 Table 6: Reported German Speech by Locale……………………………………… 111 Table 7: What the Parents Spoke…………………………………………………… 112 Table 8: Relationship of German Spoken by Parent to German Spoken by Children. 114 Table 9: Moment 1 Convergences and Divergences………………………………. 135 Table 10: Moment 2 Convergences and Divergences ……………………………. 141 Table 11: Moment 3 Convergences and Divergences…………………………….. 144 Table 12: Referential Shifts in the First-Person Plural……………………………. 175 vii List of Appendices Appendix A: Theater Surveys………………………………………….. 257 Appendix B: Fuller Sieber Transcript –See Chapter 6…………………. 260 Appendix C: Reviver Transcript – See Chapter 7………………………. 280 viii Abstract At the beginning of the 21st century, new generations of Hunsrückish German speakers in South Brazil still learn their local variety of German and use it in settings both private and public. The 700,000 or so speakers descend from 19th-century immigrants from Hunsrück and other parts of German-speaking Europe. There is a public lament that Hunsrückish is disappearing as a language; a paradoxical discourse of pride and shame stems in part from historical and contemporary lack of support and outright antagonism from the government and popular media, as well as from situations common to language shift: a transition from isolated farming communities to more diverse, urbanizing ones. Although most studies of minority speech enclaves have focused on language change among indigenous groups encompassed by major world languages, the Hunsrückish Germans in Brazil speak one major world language encompassed by another. What effect does this have on language maintenance and shift? My analysis attempts to illuminate how minority language speakers position themselves in everyday interaction, in relation to each other as well as to larger networks such as ―publics.‖ I identify four publics—some of which are more ―German,‖ some more ―Brazilian‖—with which Hunsrückish speakers align themselves personally, temporally, and spatially. These are social spheres determined both in the moment of conversation as well as in larger circulating discourse. The duality—of both micro and macro expression—means that alignments are observed through codeswitching and deictics, as well as ―contextual cues‖ (Auer 1995). Deictics are especially useful resources for creating indeterminacy, which helps in moving beyond communicative misfires and, on a larger scale, keeping vague the positioning of the entire group of descendants of German-speaking immigrants. Cultivation of indeterminate language necessarily involves language and semiotic ideologies that emerge in the alignment process. By analyzing these ideological alignments, the dissertation endeavors to ix illuminate resources of Hunsrückish that apply to its speakers, and more generally, to all multilingual speakers. x Chapter 1 Introduction Who speaks their languages without shame? What about a people who have no name for themselves or their language? What is the usefulness of indeterminacy?