Abstract
For this article we compared more than one hundred and ninety footnotes of two of the indianist novels by José de Alencar, namely O Guarani and Iracema. The analysis was undertaken in order to understand the relationship between indigenous languages, which appear widely in them (be it heading an entry, or its predication), and the Portuguese language. Two discursive positions (from the lexicographer and the lexicographer-translator) were observed in the composition of the entries. We came to the conclusion that we are faced with a path that makes up two moments of work with indigenous languages, culminating in the visibility and power of the indigenous language. The theoretical support for this article is found in the articulation between the theoretical fields of the History of Linguistic Ideas (AUROUX, 1989; ORLANDI, 2001) and Discourse Analysis by Pêcheux.
Key-words:
Footnotes; Language; Literature; History of Linguistic Ideas; Discourse Analysis