Indigenous repertoires, voice and agency in master’s thesis writing

Abstract

Based on the concepts of language ideologies, communicative repertoires and academic literacies, this case study examines the use of language and academic writing by two graduate students at two Brazilian federal universities. Two master's theses by Avá-guarani and Kaingang authors were analyzed to verify in which ways they use Portuguese and written language to participate in this academic practice. Drawing on the analysis of the paper content, compositional structure, and language resources used, we sought to understand the writing purposes and the interlocution projected by the authors, the use they made of their communicative repertoires and how they articulate their writing to produce knowledge. The results show that the authors used Portuguese and academic writing for the purposes of denouncing and positioning themselves as indigenous authors in the face of difficulties and violence suffered, exposing and defending ways of doing research, and registering their people's knowledge, recreating the research report to serve their political and social agendas in a dialogue with an indigenous and non-indigenous audience. If, on the one hand, the papers comply with the compositional norms of the dissertation genre, they also subvert them once the repertoire used combines Portuguese resources that are sometimes distant from the privileged norm expected in the academic practices, Guarani and Kaingang resources, and other multimodal elements. The circulation and legitimation of these varieties question prevailing language ideologies and point to possibilities for more democratic coexistence at the university.