The Place of Language in a transformed São Paulo: the linguistic usages of the republican intellectuals of São Paulo

Author(s)

Hosana dos Santos Silva

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2012-04-17

Examining board members

Marilza de Oliveira; Carlos de Almeida Prado Bacellar; Jania Martins Ramos; Maria Aparecida Garcia Lopes Rossi; Maria Clara Paixao de Sousa

• Advisor: Marilza de Oliveira

Abstract

This research examines the relationship between language and society in the city of São Paulo at the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Significant changes occurred in Brazil at that time, especially in São Paulo, where an intense process of urbanization took place and the population exploded due to large migration flows. More precisely, in this dissertation we discuss the complex social and linguistic experience of a group of educated speakers, viz. the republican intellectuals of São Paulo, and attempt to observe how distinct ideologies and political militancy influenced their language production. The empirical patterns of clitic placement were described and analyzed in texts written by five members of such group of people. The findings were contrasted with data taken from the Portuguese immigrant press, in order for us to show, compare and understand the different uses of Portuguese in the city. Under this approach, the social conditions of language production and reproduction are taken into account; in other words, we focus on the structure of the subjective and objective relations that underlie the speakers choices. This interdisciplinary proposal follows the theoretical assumptions of Variationist Sociolinguistics and the Generative Theory, in dialogue with History and the Sociology of Language (cf. Pierre Bourdieu). We support the hypothesis that standard Brazilian Portuguese in São Paulo has characteristics that separate it from both vernacular Brazilian Portuguese and modern European Portuguese. Moreover, the linguistic forms that distinguish the written production of those intellectuals serve as differentiation markers among speakers, since they reveal the social status of the individuals and the effects of formal instruction on their practices. (AU)