Linguistic Practice, Power and Imagined Worlds: The Case of the Portuguese in Postcolonial Macau

ABSTRACT

This article describes and analyses the linguistic practices and socio-cultural discourses of Portuguese nationals residing in Macau Special Administrative Region (China), a territory under Portuguese rule for more than 400 years until it was returned to the People's Republic of China in 1999. Drawing from detailed interviews with 12 respondents, the research combines a postcolonial theoretical perspective with Bourdieu's notion of the habitus. It is a study of expatriates in a locale where they previously were ‘colonizers’, but where their collective identity and status have changed quite radically and suddenly. The research considers how the wider socio-cultural field that contains the Portuguese community of Macau has changed in terms of its relation to the new regime of power in contemporary Macau; and by way of extension how the habitus of Portuguese expatriates has informed, and been influenced by, the process of intercultural interactions with the host Chinese culture.

KEYWORDS:

• Intercultural Communication
• Language Acquisition
• Migration
• Colonization
• Postcolonialism
• Decolonization
• Habitus
• Macau

Notes on contributor

Vanessa Amaro has a Masters in Communication and is a PhD candidate at the Department of Communication of the University of Macau. She has been teaching communication-related course at the Macao Polytechnic Institute for over five years. Her research interests cover identity, postcolonialism, multilingualism, intercultural communication, and migration. Correspondence to: Vanessa Amaro, School of Business, Macao Polytechnic Institute, Rua de Luiz Gonzaga Gomes, Meng Tak Building, Office M523, Macau, Macau SAR, People's Republic of China.

Notes

1. For insightful sources on the complex and ambivalent history and culture of Macau, see also Amaro (1998), Aresta and Oliveira (1996, 2009), Cheng (1999), Cheong (1996), Cremer (1987), Fok (1991), Hao (2011), Jesus (1990), Lam (1997), Lam (2010), Lo and Yee (2005), Mendes (2013), Porter (1996, 2009), Yin and Zhang (2009), and Wu (1999).

2. All participants in this study were born in Portugal, and moved at some point of their lives to Macau for several reasons. The Macanese, an ethnic and linguistic group whose members have European and Asian ancestries resulting from a complex process of intermarriage (Amaro 1988, Pina-Cabral and Lourenço 1993, Pina-Cabral 2002, Hao 2011, Rangel 2012), are not part of this research project.