PORTUGUESE AO PÉ DO BERIMBAU: ON CAPOEIRA AS AN ADDITIONAL LANGUAGE

ABSTRACT From its historical origins as a resistant and violently repressed bundle of music, dance and martial arts practices of the African diaspora in Brazil, capoeira has travelled, becoming a global phenomenon with groups and networks in diverse sites around the world, including London, Cape Town and Hong Kong and indeed Leeds where this research was based. We focus on the linguistic, cultural and embodied ensemble of capoeira, researching a capoeira group with diverse participants led by Sandro, a Brazilian contramestre, providing a rich laboratory for what has been called language learning “in the wild”, specifically of the Afro-Brazilian linguistic and cultural practices (music, movement, lyric, voice) that are a crucial element of the capoeira ensemble. These linguistic and cultural practices contingently bring together, in rehearsal and performance, the characteristic capoeira dance/ martial arts movements, the pervasive regulation of rhythm and the apprenticeship of the body into its rhythm and movement. Seen from the perspective of informal language learning the capoeira group seems to constitute a near optimal context. We will explore the affordances of the capoeira group for linguistic/cultural/embodied learning of Afro-Brazilian Portuguese, drawing on the “maximalist” framework for translanguaging (BAYNHAM; LEE, 2019), which we extend to encompass the pervasive musical aspect of capoeira, linking these to contemporary perspectives on language learning, particularly informal language learning and language learning “in the wild”. RESUMO A partir de suas origens históricas, como um agregado de música, dança e artes marciais de resistência da diáspora africana no Brasil que chegou a ser violentamente reprimida, a capoeira tem viajado o mundo, tornando-se um fenômeno global com grupos e redes espalhadas em diversos locais como Londres, a Cidade do Cabo, Hong Kong e também Leeds, onde esta pesquisa foi realizada. Enfocamos neste artigo o agregado linguístico, cultural e corporificado da capoeira, pesquisando um grupo de capoeira com diversos participantes, liderado por Sandro, um contramestre brasileiro, que fornece um rico laboratório para o que tem sido chamado de aprendizagem de línguas “na natureza selvagem”, neste caso envolvendo mais especificamente práticas linguísticas e culturais afro-brasileiras (voz, letra, música e movimento) que são elementos cruciais do agregado da capoeira. Essas práticas linguísticas e culturais reúnem, de forma con