Aspects of variation in the economic language of colonial Brazil

Author(s)

Eliane Simões Pereira

• Document type: Doctoral Thesis
• Press: São Paulo.
• Institution: Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Faculdade de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (FFLCH/SBD)
• Defense date: 2013-03-01

Examining board members

Ieda Maria Alves; Mariangela de Araujo; Maria Aparecida Barbosa; Joaquim Rodrigues Bento; Maria Madalena Dias Marques Contente; Maria Teresa Rijo da Fonseca Lino

• Advisor: Ieda Maria Alves

Abstract

The economic practices established in the early days of Brazil as a colony of Portugal have such relevance that studying their terminological evolution may shed light on spheres of our socio-historical development. In the colonial Brazil scenario, Economics, even before its establishment as a modern science, is adopted as the object of this thesis to outline aspects of the history of Brazilian Portuguese formation through the study of diachronic variation of a specialized language. To achieve this aim, besides an appropriate historical contextualization, methodological procedures based on observation of a corpus were adopted. Our computerized database gathered texts produced in Brazil, and on Brazil, from the 16th to the 18th century, which addressed the economic activity developed in the colony. The analysis followed a diachronic path, through which it was possible to detect elements of variation between terms of colonial Brazil. Economic terms surrounding the fiscal universe, such as fifth, tithe, tenth, retenth, firstlings, besides some specific subsidies were selected. The different types of terminological variations that such terms underwent, which were listed in this research, reflected both the trait of great dynamism of the Portuguese language at that time and the often chaotic characteristic of the colonial administration existing in Brazil. One concludes that studying the dynamics of the lexicon of a specialized language, which gathers key aspects of a culture during a period, such as that elected here, may contribute not only to capture and document the history of a society, but also to broaden linguistic knowledge. (AU)

• FAPESP's process: 09/14240-8 - The vocabulary of economy on Colonial Brazil: semantic and lexical change
• Grantee: Eliane Simões Pereira
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Doctorate