Nationality in the Press and on Radio: A Language Policy in the Vargas Era

Abstract This paper studies the nationality regulation on radio and newspapers, trying to understand its effect over the language policy in those communication vehicles. For this purpose, we based the discussion on the Discourse Analysis and the History of Linguistic Ideas in Brazil. The corpus involves the legislation for the mass media published during the Vargas Era (1930-1945). In general, we discuss how the nationality policy resulted in a policy for the languages on radio and the written press, when increased or limited the right to speak for native or naturalized Brazilians and foreigners. Furthermore, the analysis shows that the right to speak regulation was an attempt to control the discourse production causing a foreigner interdiction in those particular vehicles.