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Paper short abstract

Based on the dynamics of co-operative action, lamination and accumulation (Goodwin, 2018), this work introduces an approach for the documentation, description and analysis of the Baré variety of Brazilian Portuguese, which has emerged within an ecology of massive language contact.

Paper long abstract

Inspired by the demands of the native peoples of Brazil for the recognition and documentation of the varieties of Portuguese they speak, we present our proposal for documenting one such variety based on the dynamics of co-operative action (Goodwin, 2018). The Baré, a people living in Northwestern Brazilian Amazonia, are speakers of Nheengatu, a Tupi-Guarani language adopted once their original Arawakan language became extinct during the colonization of their territory. The variety of Portuguese that they speak has arisen within an ecology of massive language contact. Based on our work with linguistic phenomena pertaining to the epistemicity domain, such as those related to evidentiality, we will argue, from a Goodwinian perspective, that such phenomena emerge in contemporary interactions from processes of decomposition and reuse with transformation (i.e. co-operative action) not only of linguistic features, but also cultural regimes of historicity, poetics, and tradition, all of which figure as public resources made available by speakers during preceding communicative practices spanning a long time. An approach to the documentation, description and analysis of an Indigenous variety of Portuguese that take all those aspects into account can contribute to understanding how such Portuguese varieties convey discourse structures and cultural meanings that are integral to Indigenous ontologies, as they have emerged from the contact with Indigenous languages and cultures and are used by Indigenous peoples in their daily social and communicative practices.