Abstract:
In this paper, we analyze the language testing regime in the context of transnational migration to Brazil and its relation to hegemonic linguistic ideologies in the construction of body differentiation systems. Therefore, we understand test as a formal instrument to measure proficiency, established as a pre-requisite to the entry, residence, and/or acquisition of nationality by migrants in several countries, working as a way of gatekeeping state frontiers, according to the researched literature. Initially, we identified three kinds of language tests in Brazil: the Brazilian Certificate of Proficiency in Portuguese for Foreigners (Celpe-Bras); the Portuguese test for foreign physicians within the federal government program “More Doctors for Brazil”; and the verification of Portuguese literacy in naturalization processes. The corpus analysis indicated several discrepancies between the state-of-art in the studies of language tests for migrants and the Brazilian reality, putting into perspective the very existence of a language testing regime in the country, considering that the articulations of its linguistic and gatekeeping aspects are contradictory. The resources indexed in the documents about tests in Brazil actually show the affirmation of autonomy in the management of the Portuguese language and the commodification of Portuguese teaching for foreigners as a market strategy and a showcase of a globalized Brazilian culture, in an ideological construction of static and naturalized correspondence between official language and nation, creating therefore hierarchies among “desirable” and “undesirable” migrant identities.
Keywords:
Language tests; language ideologies; language policy; migration