Warana: um estudo etnolinguístico da cultura do guaraná entre os Mawé

Abstract

The proposition of this research was the investigation of the signification of the phenomenon mawé language, more specifically, a cataloging of the lexicon used by them when describing a plant, the cultivation and the beneficiation of the plant, such as the guaraná fruit, discussing the relation between language and culture in the process with which the items are conceptualized and represent the reality of this ethnic group. The methodology involved two basic activities: the first regarding data collection and transcription where indigenous teachers were interviewed with little or great experience with guaraná cultivation, and the second, to the analysis and interpretation of data collected. The relation between language and culture, in the case of guaraná, like any ancestral culture, it occurs when a whole load of traditional and cultural knowledge can be evidenced from the collection of its vocabulary, given in this the materialization of the lexicon, represented by means of the language in grammatical and semantic instances, thus, a specific lexicon operationalized by the action of the sociocognitive device, that is, mediated or activated from the cognitive apparatus and social forces within the multisystemic functionalist-cognitive theoretical perspective. The lexicon approach chosen for this work allowed a communication with distinct areas: the interface between lexicology, culture and the history of agriculture.