Conference-dialogue of Axis 2 “ Inclusive societies ”

• January 17, 2023 , 2 p.m.-4 p.m., MSH Bordeaux Room 2

Adilson Crepalde is Professor of Language Didactics at the Estadual University of Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil). He is currently carrying out a post-doc at the University of São Paulo on images of languages ​​(and linguistic imaginations) under the direction of Mr. Valdir Heitor Barzotto. He is interested in the processes of meaning construction in multilingual and multicultural contexts.

Discussant: Giovanni Agresti , Sociolinguist, University Professor of Language Sciences, UMR 5478 Iker (CNRS – Université Bordeaux Montaigne – UPPA), Co-head of Axis 2 (“Inclusive Societies”), Maison des Sciences de l’Homme from Bordeaux.

The study of the Guarani language-culture allows us to understand a way of producing and giving meaning to life that surprises those who dedicate themselves to this work. By beginning to understand – even if only superficially – the words aligned in the sounds of the speech that descends from the sky, as the Guarani sages say, the seeker discovers why the word ñẽ'e means "speech" , “language”, “soul” and “way of being”. This poetic language, delicately developed while walking through the world, on the skin of the yvy , of Mother Earth, allows us to glimpse an ancestral philosophy which emanates from the constraints imposed by the environment in which and with which the Guarani people Apu'ã rises as the flower of the world, the idea of ​​NãnderuVussu , the great God. Studying this language means being able to understand the complex concept of tekoha , space-time, an ecological network which is today threatened by the way of thinking of the karai , the non-Indians. A way of thinking that passes through discourse in the Karai ​​which bleed into Avañe'e , the Guarani language. But she resists, she does not abandon her difference, to fight for the bosom of the motherland. To think about what is happening right now with the Guarani language in Mato Grosso do Sul is to think about linguistics, about the construction of identity, about belonging, about the meeting-confrontation-conflict of languages and cultures; finally, it is to reflect on the questions which concern humanity at this historical moment.