Deutsches fest: shame and pride in a situation of symbolic and economic mobilizations

ABSTRACT

In this article, we aim to approach language practices that circumscribe language commodification phenomena in a festive event - Deutsches Fest -, which takes place annually in a small town in the Brazilian state of Paraná. We argue that there has been a movement opposite to that suggested by Heller and Duchêne (2012, 2016): from the use of language at the festival initially as a resource or aded commercial value (profit) has resulted in its use as an identity mark (pride). Some residents who used to be ashamed of being “colonos” (settlers), have become, through the festival, proud of the practices that identity them as such. Held annually since 2002, the festival rewrites the history of the residents’ migration, as these descendants of German immigrants who left the state Rio Grande do Sul in the 1960s revise local/regional and national identities (“Germans” versus Brazilian citizens). Our focus is on written and oral language practices - which circulate in newspapers, media commercials, interviews, Facebook posts, TV programs -, and semiotic practices such as the colors of the German flag and clothing, as well as the Festival itself, a 3-day public and collective event celebrated through dance, dinners, barbecues, draft beer, sports competitions and other recreational activities. The results demonstrate that these practices are symbolic and economic mobilizations of language marked by tensions that have raised discourses of pride of belonging to a “local German culture” shared by the residents.

Keywords:
commodification of language; migration community; festival