Inheriting the past’s fracture: Emotionality in the bilingual discourse of Terra Sonâmbula

Lidiana de Moraes

doi:10.14393/LL63-v40-2024-27

Authors

Lidiana de Moraes Vanderbilt University https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6534-7545

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14393/LL63-v40-2024-27

Keywords:

Sleepwalking Land, Mia Couto, Bilingualism, Emotionality, Teresa Prata

Abstract

Language is a living corpus that shapes identities. Through language, we can communicate in a democratic manner that facilitates living in community, and it helps to express feelings in a deeper level of exchange. In plurilingual settings, the language used while telling a story communicates something deeper about the person’s history (as an individual and as part of a collective construction). For this reason, I argue that in Sleepwalking Land, movie directed by Teresa Prata, based on Mia Couto’s book, the language choices made by the characters carry an emotional load characteristic of identities impacted by the history of a country fractured by (post)colonialism. By contrasting language usage, it is possible to identify how the history of Mozambique interferes in the emotional reference of its people, especially in extreme traumatic conditions, such as the ones presented in Sleepwalking Land.

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Author Biography

Lidiana de Moraes, Vanderbilt University

Lidiana de Moraes é pós-doutora filiada ao Center of Latin American, Caribbean, and Latinx Studies (CLACX), da Vanderbilt University. Seu trabalho é focado em Estudos Literários e Culturais no mundo lusófono e nas Américas. Possui um Ph.D. em Estudos Literários, Culturais e Linguísticos pela University of Miami e mestrado em Teoria Literária pela Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS).

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