Humorous performance: The production of a German-Rondonian speaker stereotype

Abstract

The focus of this study is the city of Marechal Cândido Rondon, located in the west of Paraná, which was populated in 1950, in most, by German immigrants and descendants, who came from different regions of Germany and European countries, whose spoken language is/was German. The main goal of this paper is to think and to analyze how the sociolinguistic performance of a local humorist reproduces the stereotype of a “German settler”, having as a corpus a TV advertising in which the character talks about the prevention of dengue. Known in many regions of Brazil, the humorist does a negotiation of German identity, using phonological, lexical, thematic and symbolic strategies, which can stigmatize the German speaking and, besides, the German speakers. Thus, at first, in this paper, it will be presented some considerations about how the historical relation between Germans and Brazil had intensified with the German immigration, which begun effectively in 1824, and how the process of the German colonization has happened in Marechal Cândido Rondon. After the presentation of the historical facts, it will be showed, from the viewpoint of sociolinguistics and linguistic variation, the performance of this character and its relation to the German local community. As a result, the reproduction of symbolic violence occurs with speakers of that minority social group, homogenizing them, and taking their listeners to laughter by the association of the way of speaking to a stereotypical representation of German settler, thick, uneducated, without valued knowledge. In conclusion, the recognition of the diversity of the social aspects of German culture and language is constituted as one of the goals for the development of local bilingualism and the reduction of stigma in the macro-region of German-Portuguese speakers.

Keywords: immigrant, stereotype, stigma, German language and culture.