THEMATIZATION OF LANGUAGE IN CONTEMPORARY LUSOPHONE POETRY

Within the framework of research on language ideologies and critical discourse analysis, this article examines the ways in which the Portuguese is represented in contemporary poetry written in Portuguese. From a corpus of poetic texts by eminent lusophone authors (Oswald de Andrade, Manuel Bandeira, Menotti del Picchia, Manuel Rui, Vasco Graça Moura), we selected ideologically engaged poems that thematize the social status of the Portuguese language and its speakers. The central focus of the study is the identification of language ideologies present in these texts and their relation to relevant socio-historical and literary contexts, as well as to specific linguistic devices and discursive strategies employed in the articulation of ideological positions. The analysis reveals the existence of two main types of poetic discourse on the Portuguese language: an emancipatory discourse and a purist-conservative one. The emancipatory discourse, prominent in the poetry of the Brazilian modernists, is characterized by the contestation of cultural and linguistic authority shaped by the European Portuguese standard and by the promotion of a norm closer to the vernacular. The purist–conservative discourse, exemplified primarily by the work of the Portuguese poet Vasco Graça Moura, relies on institutionally supported ideologies grounded in non-empirical assumptions about language. Poetic reflections on language are expressed both through explicit questioning and, implicitly, through the use of linguistic structures that function either to reinforce or to destabilize the normative framework.