A construção social de identidades sociolinguísticas na escola moçambicana: o caso dos alunos do EP1 de Beleluane

Abstract

In the present study we set out to analyze the problem of the social construction of sociolinguistic identities of the student in the Mozambican school. We seek to know what implications for identities stem from the fact that the primary and secondary socialization processes of EP1 students at Escola Primária Completa de Beluluane occur through the use of different languages. Socialization is understood here as the process through which the individual learns to be a member of society, through mechanisms of interaction and identification with others, and language constitutes a vehicle through which socialization occurs. From it, the child learns to transmit and retain certain socially recognized meanings, learns to structure their thinking, and through it interacts with others around them. The starting point was the theoretical assumption according to which the identity of an individual is socially constructed in the interaction with others, and in the case of a phenomenon that results from the dialectical relationship between individual and society, it passes through three moments: externalization, objectification and the internalization. Identity is externalized in the social world in which the individual finds himself, it is objectified and internalized in the individual's consciousness. These three moments are part of the individual's socialization process, a process that is mediated by language. In order to carry out the study, a question was raised from which we seek to know how the process of building social identities at school occurs, for the specific case of students whose mother tongue is Xironga and once at school they are faced with with the Portuguese language, a language they do not master. It starts with the hypothesis that the linguistic profile of a child who speaks Xironga as their mother tongue undergoes changes when, when entering school, they are forced to assimilate the language of instruction, Portuguese, and consequently their individual behavior, their structure. that were initially shaped by the Xironga language in its cultural component, start to insert this new element of the school reality that is the Portuguese language, giving rise to a new sociolinguistic identity. The research results made it possible to conclude that this new sociolinguistic identity is perceptible in the interaction process and characterized by the use of the Xironga language and Portuguese depending on the context and situation in which the student finds himself; adequate or poor speaking of Xironga and Portuguese; development of behaviors of rejection or acceptance and also feelings of identification or differentiation towards these two languages ​​and their other users