Abstract:
The German language arrived in Brazil at the beginning of the 19th century, maintaining itself as the main communication link between German immigrants. It is a contribution to the transmission and maintenance of a certain way of being, a cultural and religious identity. Analyzing its place in history, in the perspective of the emergence of Lutheranism, looking for the bridge between Martin Luther and schools of the Synodical Education Network, is the primary objective of this research. We propose an analytical look at the place of the German language in the history of Lutheran schools in southern Brazil to identify to what extent the institutional, academic, pedagogical organization of these schools, and in them, the promotion of the German language, articulates with confessional religious values and the maintenance of a narrative of Lutheran protagonism. At the same time that the teaching of the German language gives institutions a differential compared to most private schools, it serves as an instrument of affirming a German identity. The research, of a qualitative nature, is developed from three schools of the Synodical Network: Instituto Ivoti - Ivoti / RS, Colégio Sinodal - São Leopoldo / RS and SETREM - Educational Society Três de Maio - Três de Maio / RS, all built upon the historic foundations of German immigrant communities. The fact that we enter three schools allows us to understand the main guidelines of the Synodical Network and how they concretely are reflected and applied. The interviews with teachers and coordinators and the documentary analysis lead us to understand that one of the roles of schools is in the cultural overcoming of the imaginary of the German language as an ugly language, of "people without culture." When schools make room for German language teaching, they make room for the story to be retold. Here there is memory, symbolism, emotion and protagonism. German is taught for the value of the language itself, for what it represents in history and for the possibilities it offers today. And it is precisely in this historical value carried by the language where one finds its symbolic, ideological place and the idea of the founding myth. The German language in the schools of the Synodical Network is receiving different treatment and, in some way, helps to trace a historical line in Lutheranism, a bridge between the past and the present. It is linked to a Lutheran protagonism, as it confers “something more” and does not depend on the coherence between the historical fact and the social imaginary, but it is in the conditions and reasons for its creation. And it is through language that history is known and spans generations. It is in this perspective that we can say that the founding myth persists creating new outlines of reality, being sustained in the language that enhances the human symbolic universe.
