Partial linguistic atlas of médio Tietê

• Grant number: 15/14038-5
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate
• Start date: November 01, 2015
• End date: November 30, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Linguistics, Literature and Arts - Linguistics - Sociolinguistics and Dialectology
• Principal Investigator: Manoel Mourivaldo Santiago Almeida
• Grantee: Selmo Ribeiro Figueiredo Junior
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil
• Associated research grant: 11/51787-5 - Project for the History of Paulista Brazilian Portuguese, AP.TEM

Abstract

Adopting the Pluridimensional Dialectology programme, developed by Dr. Thun, the main task of this doctoral research will be to set up a partial linguistic atlas. It is being said 'partial' because it is the phonetic-phonological and lexical-semantic levels which will be taken as language layers for focusing on, considering existing linguistic varieties in Médio Tietê region context, especially 'Caipira' dialect, and observing it in language contacts with other languages/dialects. Ten São Paulo State's cities form the empirical research field: Tietê, Santana de Parnaíba, Araçariguama, Itu, Sorocaba, São Roque, Porto Feliz, Pirapora do Bom Jesus, Capivari e Piracicaba, cities whose urban origin dates back to the 16th century.The Pluridimensional Dialectology (or Geolinguistics) offers an approach to linguistic variation which considers both concern about studying spatially localized phenomena (called a "horizontal" aspect) and correlative social variables ("vertical" aspect). Thun (1998: 704) defines his Dialectology as a general science of linguistic variation and relations among varieties and variants, as well among variants and speakers.Throughout the course of data collection, there will be one point of investigation in each city. Each point will have four informants, two men and two women, who will equitably be split up into two age groups (GI: 18 to 36, and GII: 55 onwards). Furthermore, still in an equitable way, informants will be divided between i) the ones who have either completed or partially attended higher education, and either free professional occupation or are self-employed (Ca); and ii) the ones who have from primary school up to completed secondary school, or are illiterates, all of them working in agriculture or activity without usage of writing (Cb). Everyone must be born in the place where she/he is living in, or must be living in there for at least a quarter of their lifetime, necessarily the last five years.As data collection instruments, it will be done two questionnaires (a semantic and lexical one and another phonetic and phonological), a free conversation, and a reading of an ethnic-text.Thereby, there will be 40 informants in total, separated according to following dimensions of: gender (diasexual dimension), age (diagenerational one), and sociocultural class (diastratic one); diatopic (informants with fixed domicile; topostatic), diatopic and kinetic (contrast between change of domicile and fixed domicile; topodynamic), diaphasic (responses to the questionnaires, free conversation and reading; three language usage styles), and finally diareferential (language as object, and metalanguage).Methodologically, informants will be treated into four speech groups, according to dimensions' parameters, on every point of investigation, in order to afford a later contrast among data produced by those groups, which are formed as follows: 1) Ca and GI informants (CaGI); 2) Ca and GII ones (CaGII); 3) Cb and GI ones (CbGI); 4) Cb and GII ones (CbGII).This study intends to pitch in with researchers' efforts whose investigations, collectively treated, attempt to find out and to describe many of speech communities, making possible a global and complete consideration of the multiple linguistic varieties in the countries. After a description and analysis of collected data, the phonetic and lexical characteristics of that region will be known, contributing to the scientific knowledge of São Paulo State and Brazil linguistic reality.This research is a part of the set of activities which the Project for History of São Paulo State Portuguese (PHPP) comprehends, a so-called FAPESP's Thematic Project, process 2011/51787-5 (AU).