JoLIE 15:3/2022

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VOYAGE AND COSMOPOLITANISM: THE LONG RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN PORTUGUESE AND ENGLISH

IN MADEIRA

 

 

Alcina Sousa A green circle with white letters

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University of Madeira, Funchal & ULICES, Lisbon, Portugal

 

 

Abstract

 

The aim of this paper is to discuss the extent to which linguistic cosmopolitanism, that is language perceived both as a medium of communication and a marker of cultural identity(ies), as defended by Sonntag (2015), has been developed for centuries in residents’ / natives’ everyday dialogical encounters with visitors/foreigners in Madeira (Nunes & Miranda 1969). Though back in time, Crystal’s (2003: 182) premises on the need of studying foreigner talk, i.e., the ones displayed in non-native English contexts including learners’ output (empirical studies by Sousa 1998a, 2008, 2009a-b), to non-natives speakers’ data both in translingual contexts as well as in the workplace (service encounters, business and professional domains). In this regard, this empirical study of reflective and exploratory kind opens horizons into the use of the English language in Madeira, as a particular context of use in the Lusophone world. The discussion departs from an account of idiosyncratic features in the use of English in Madeira, supposedly a monolingual setting in Portugal, by revisiting several data collected from 2009 onwards in several domains: data from an empirical study in progress, collected from 1998-present on the use of English in Madeira, namely in the academic context (1998)[1]; an empirical perspective on English use in Madeira (2009); everyday encounters and media texts (2009-present). Hence, the corpus selected for analysis in a diachronic perspective (Sousa 2018a-b) comprises the local newspapers issued between 1880 and 1915, written in English: The Comet (Dec. 1882, four issues) and Heraldo da Madeira (Henriques 1904-1915)[2].

 

Keywords: Madeira; English; Linguistic cosmopolitanism; Translanguaging; Language varieties.

 

 

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How to cite this article: Sousa, A. (2022). Voyage and cosmopolitanism: The long relationship between Portuguese and English In Madeira. Journal of Linguistic and Intercultural Education – JoLIE, 15(3), 83-118. doi: https://doi.org/10.29302/jolie.2022.15.3.7

 

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[1] Students’ response to a questionnaire on reading habits, purpose, strategies and text types in English as a foreign language has offered renewed insights on the sort of implications of FL instruction, in this particular case study, on NNS written data, which has been reassessed against data collected in 2008 (Mirzaei, Roohani & Esmaeili 2012). The former comprised a questionnaire addressing the issues at hand involving the informants with questioning, prompting and reflecting, by means of open-ended questions. “Giving reasons” (also making part of item-dependent, open-ended questions/answers) followed short answers and multiple-choice items.

[2] The author wishes to express her gratitude to Dr. Maria de Fátima Barros, director of the Regional Library and Archive of Madeira (2018) for granting the online documents.