Theorising Linguistic Prejudice in Brazil: Pierre Bourdieu – The Symbolic Power of Language and the Principle of Error Correction

Abstract

This paper examines the deeply ingrained nature of linguistic prejudice towards popular varieties of Brazilian Portuguese and analyses it with reference to the work of the French philosopher and sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu. Bourdieu’s theory captures the fact that language variety (like race, religion, ethnicity, sexuality, etc.) is a human variable, and variables are sensitive to being associated with some type of social meaning, entirely independent of the inherent characteristics and qualities of the variable. From this viewpoint, non-standard forms of a language are given a devalued price, and one’s linguistic competence, the ability to adopt different ways of speaking, functions as linguistic capital in the market of the nation/state. In this sense, linguistic prejudice can be understood as ‘symbolic violence’, whereby society is structured not only to devalue non-standard speech but also to convince its citizens, including the speakers of non-standard forms, that certain ways of speaking have less worth and are somehow inferior to the speech of others. Linguistic prejudice is also analysed from a hermeneutic point of view, from which the belief that the standard form of the language is the superior form constitutes society’s horizon of intelligibility. We also analyse the most common educational measure to deal with language variation in a non-discriminatory way: the theory of differences and the proposal of bidialectalism. We argue that these measures are of limited effect since they are based on naïve conclusions of sociolinguistic studies which propose that linguistic prejudice can be combatted via a ‘principle of error correction’ (Lewis, Language and Society, 47(3), 325–346, 2018) whereby the focus is on changing beliefs of individuals. We argue that it is more important to analyse the political, historical and social factors which sustain and reinforce such beliefs and the material structures which endorse and promote them. We conclude by proposing a number of solutions to combat linguistic prejudice in Brazil, related to accepting and celebrating the linguistic diversity within Brazilian Portuguese whilst at the same time maintaining a written standard and the unity of the Brazilian language and the Brazilian people.