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Programme: accepted abstracts

Abstract ID: 1442

Part of Plenary lectures (Other abstracts in this session)

Unveiling Brazilian Portuguese: 40 years of sociolinguistic research

Authors: Duarte, Maria Eugenia Lamoglia
Submitted by: Duarte, Maria Eugenia (Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil)

Ever since its introduction in Brazil by Anthony Naro in the early 70’s, the investigation of language variation has matured in Brazil such that today it is possible to draw a rich picture of Brazilian phonology and morphosyntax. When one considers the various research studies carried out over the almost 40 years of sociolinguistic studies throughout the country, it is evident that what distinguishes Brazilians diatopically are the differences in prosody and the realization of /E/ and /O/ in pretonic syllables and /R/ and /S/ in syllabic coda. Other processes, such as the deletion of final /R/ in infinitives and of the glide in the diphthong [ey] when followed by a tap and palatal fricatives, show remarkable regularity in their distribution in the cities. The same is found in the variable use of nominal and verbal agreement marks, strongly related to years of school attendance and style. My purpose is to show some of these phenomena which characterize Brazilian speech in general, but focus on aspects of Brazilian syntax related to (a) the reorganization of the pronominal paradigm with new pronouns grammaticalised out of former nominal address forms, and (b) the reduction in the set of third person complement clitics . Such a new set of nominative pronouns combining with unmarked verb forms for second and third person singular and first person plural and a defective set of complement clitics have triggered a system which prefers overt pronominal subjects and empty anaphoric direct objects. Results for such variable phenomena in several urban speech communities show the regular effect of the discourse status of the antecedent (same/different) and the degree of referentiality of the subject/object and allow the inference of more general tendencies in processes of change affecting Brazilian Portuguese. Besides the identification of common internal and external factors correlated to the changes in progress, Brazilian sociolinguists have been able to find answers to the actuation, the transition, the embedding and the evaluation problems, fundamental to any investigation which intends to understand language change. Currently, there has been an increasing interest in empirical analyses of contemporary written language in an attempt to describe the grammar which emerges as a result from the deep gap between speech and conservative normative teaching. Finally, it will be shown that results for social variables considered in research studies carried out all over the country are a very important and effective weapon to help end old impressionistic beliefs concerning language variation and combat linguistic prejudices.