Imigrantes brasileiros: esforços na preservação da língua materna

Abstract

This ethnographic study describes the socialization process of twelve Brazilian families, living in the United States, by confronting a new language/culture .Bilingual communicative competence was investigated within five social domains. Children/adolescents of the study manifest a kind of “subtractive bilingualism”. Parents express strategies of actions aiming at the maintenance of the first language. The church community and Brazilian television programs become important forces of promoting ties with the ethnolinguistic tradition of the group. The registered communicative behavior focus the language as an identity marker associated with the acculturation process of these families.