Atitudes e estigma: investigações sobre o status do alteamento da vogal média posterior tônica na variedade marajoara

Abstract

The present thesis, entitled: Attitude and Stigma: Investigations of the status of tonic posterior mean increase in the marajoara variety, aimed to: i) examine the role of social variables gender, education and age in the formation of linguistic attitudes towards a variety discredited and suffering prejudice; ii) investigate the cognitive and affective components, within each social variable, as elements that modify attitudes, variations and linguistic changes; and, iii) to study, in parallel, the recurrence of middle back vowels in stressed syllables in the variety of Portuguese spoken in the mesoregion of Marajó, as a variant evaluated below the speaker's level of consciousness. As a complement to the attitude survey, a posterior mid-vowel acoustic study in stressed syllable in the variety of Portuguese spoken in the mesoregion of Marajó was carried out, as a possible heightened variant and evaluation according to linguistic attitudes. For this purpose, the theoretical-ethodological assumptions of Variationist Sociolinguistics (CARDOSO, 2015; LABOV, 2008; AGUILERA, 2008; CALVET, 2002; MORENO FERNÁNDEZ, 1998; LÓPEZ MORALES, 1989) and Social Psychology (BEM, 1973; LAMBERT; LAMBERT, 1972; ROKEACH, 1968; LICKERT, 1932; THURSTONE, 1929). The universe of this research was the Marajó mesoregion, the largest archipelago of river islands in the world, with 16 municipalities legally, of which the cities of Breves, Curralinho and Portel were selected as target locations, as they comprise zones of interdialectal contact. The work methodology included procedures used for the collection, treatment and analysis of acoustic data and linguistic attitude, namely: i) instruments for collecting acoustic data on speech production, based on the interview protocol (Phonetic-Phonological Questionnaire); and, for data collection and linguistic attitude measurement (false pairs technique), from the attitude questionnaire; ii) profile of research participants, who add up to 72 characteristics socially stratified by sex, age group and education level; iii) variables controlled in the acoustic description (segmental, prosodic and social); and variables controlled in the analysis of linguistic attitude (gender, age and education); iv) data processing. In the analysis procedure, the following were performed: i) an acoustic characterization of the target vowel, based on the parameters of F1 and F2; and iii) an analysis of the linguistic evaluations of the eightening of the stressed back mid vowel in the marajoara variety. The acoustic data showed that the absence of heightening in the target variable was categorical, because in the constitution of an acoustic space that could show the effective behavior of what was thought to be a high posterior vowel, the occurrences of the segment [u] presented its distribution in the same region of the posterior mean [o], with mean value of F1 at 471 Hz and of F2, 956 Hz. This leads us to state that it is the same vocalic segment, based on the acoustic data. The result of the subjective evaluations revealed that native speakers of the marajoara municipalities, target of the research, manifested positive attitudes when they were placed in the position of judges to judge possible recurrent varieties in the marajoara region. This positive valuation reveals that, although the participants did not perform the heightening of the back vowel in the tonic, they rated it as a prestige variant. The acceptance and prestige given to the variant, a product of a positive attitude, are added to the feeling of solidarity, motivated by emotions, knowledge and positive reactions acquired in the use of its variety or in that of other subjects.