Variation and Idiosyncrasy in Bavarian and Brazilian Portuguese

• Processo: 25/15024-0
• Modalidade de apoio: Auxílio Organização - Reunião Científica
• Data de Início da vigência: 01 de dezembro de 2025
• Data de Término da vigência: 30 de novembro de 2027
• Área do conhecimento: Linguística, Letras e Artes - Linguística - Sociolinguística e Dialetologia
• Pesquisador responsável: Gladis Massini-Cagliari
• Beneficiário: Gladis Massini-Cagliari
• Instituição Sede: Faculdade de Ciências e Letras (FCL). Universidade Estadual Paulista (UNESP). Campus de Araraquara. Araraquara , SP, Brasil
• Município da Instituição Sede: Araraquara
• Assunto(s): Mudança linguística Sociolinguística Variação linguística
• Palavra(s)-Chave do Pesquisador: métodos avançados de pesquisa em Sociolinguística | mudança linguistica | sociolingüística | variação lingüística | variedades da Baviera | variedades do Português Brasileiro | Variação linguística: variedades da Baviera e do Português Brasileiro

Resumo

This project is focussed on a comparative linguistic analysis of varieties of Bavarian and Brazilian Portuguese. Although they differ greatly in typology, sociolinguistic status, and speaker demographics, recent research has revealed that both exhibit patterns of individual variation that lack consistent grammatical or social conditioning. This type of variation is often dismissed as statistical noise or under-researched data. The assumption is that languages are ordered, coherent and obey fixed rules and the task of the linguist is to make sense of the seemingly erratic and chaotic linguistic data by uncovering the systematic, underlying regularities. We highlight how such assumptions of orderliness and coherence were common historically in more established scientific disciplines (e.g physics) and how further research revealed deeper complexity and that nature is governed by probability and variationWe suggest that the prevalence of idiosyncratic individual variation calls for a reassessment of foundational assumptions in linguistics. We challenge the notion that such variation lacks value and we seek to integrate non-canonical data into linguistic theory. This project therefore explores the theoretical, methodological, and empirical implications of this variation. It positions variation as a central-rather than peripheral-feature of language, essential to understanding its adaptability, complexity, and expressive potential. The specific and more practical aims of the project are to (a) foster international collaboration between researchers in Bavaria and Brazil by highlighting unexpected linguistic parallels between their varieties (b) highlight how data from Bavarian and Brazilian Portuguese can be extremely relevant to important international debates in linguistics (c) equip young researchers with the knowledge and skills in order to contribute to these debates and thus increase the international reach and impact of their research. (AU)