Some aspects of syntactic variation in Brazilian Portuguese

Abstract

This work has a twofold purpose: to show some of the patterns of variation in operation in Brazilian Portuguese (BP) and to establish correlations between the Brazilian linguistic situation and the Portuguese teaching problems.

These goals are pursued by means of (a) a sociolinguistic analysis. of parts of the negation and pronoun systems in the variety of BP used in the State of Espirito Santo, and (b) the interpretation of the results of that analysis*in the light of the educational policies enforced by the government and the social structures in which the educational process evolves.

My original assumptions are that BP is a post-creole continuum and that' the poor standards of Portuguese teaching in Brazil are brought about by a misapprehension of the linguistic situation as a whole. The work is divided into six parts. In part I the relevant background information is supplied in three chapters: the first chapter is an introduction covering a review of studies in pidgins and creoles, a brief expansion of the concept of, lectal continuum and a report on Portuguese teaching in Brazil. The second chapter is a description of the methodological procedures whereby the data were collected, and the third chapter supplies linguistic background information. In Part II a pilot analysis of the original' data is carried out. In Part III emerging hypotheses are tested against the evidence of additional data. Implicational relationships between variants are then formalized in a set of implicational scales. , Part IV is a description of the subjective attitude test. Results are presented in tables and scales. Part V supplies further information from (a) a test case and (b) two New Testament translations, i. e. a standard translation and a so-called popular one. The test case shows the amount of variation spanned by an individual speaker's repertoire; the New Testament translations supply further evidence as to judgements on formality and informality as well as on social acceptance. Part VI presents a series of conclusions, points to new directions and puts forward an educational proposal. Four appendices accompany the work: one copy of each of the two questionnaires utilized in fieldwork, a copy of the tables showing the total number of responses to the main questionnaire, and a transcription of the language data on which the work is based.