O Primeiro Congresso da Língua Nacional Cantada:

Uma página esquecida na história da linguística

Abstract

This paper discusses the pre-scientific status assigned to the First Congress of the Sung National Language. The event took place in July 1937 and aimed to establish a “cult” standard of pronunciation to be used in classical singing, theater and recitation. I try to situate the initiative on the political and institutional level, relate it to the intellectual context of the period and inscribe it in the history of linguistic (ideas) in Brazil. I explain that during this period the first graduation courses of Letters appeared in the country, but the professionals in activity were, for the most part, self-taught and that language issues could be discussed from very different theoretical orientations. I show that the interest in knowing the national reality and the valorization of speech as the main matrix of the Brazilian linguistic identity determined the preference for the historical-comparative approach, in detriment of classical philology, and the integration of dialectology in the research agenda of the area. And I discuss the marginalization of the Congress of the Sung National Language and the set of linguistic research developed at the time, examining the criteria of scientificity that guide the linguists’ perception about the history of their discipline since the introduction of the structural linguistics in Brazilian universities.