Opções metodológicas para o estudo de fenômenos variáveis relacionados à 1a pessoa do discurso

This paper presents methodology for an integrated treatment of three variable phenomena in Brazilian portuguese: (i) encoding of first-person plural into the forms nós (we) and a gente (the people), (ii) verbal agreement with the pronoun nós and (iii) verbal agreement with the pronominal form a gente. Based on the theoretical framework provided by Labovian sociolinguistics (LABOV, 1966, 1972), the methodology is applied to a sample of Brazilian portuguese spoken in the countryside of São Paulo State (GONÇALVES, 2007). The results indicate that distinct factors predominate in the choice of the alternative forms of each phenomenon: in the verbal agreement with a gente, linguistic factors are the most prominent; in the verbal agreement with nós, social factors are the most salient; and in the use of nós/a gente both linguistic and social factors prevail.

Um olhar sociolinguístico sobre as interações do teletandem: diversidade e variações linguísticas

This article reports on the diversity and the linguistic variations in e-mails and chat interactions in teletandem interactions. Based on the interface of foreign language acquisition and sociolinguistics, its focus is on linguistic variants under the perspective of the social variations of language, especially regarding standard and non-standard norms of the Portuguese language in a teletandem context. Sociolinguistics offers us resources for the analysis and understanding that we intend to provide about teletandem interactions. We also mention the Teletandem Brasil project, its ideas and theoretical orientations, and also analyze data collected. The findings show that the variations in foreign students´ written production, who are also Portuguese learners, come from fluctuations between the standard and non-standard norms because students still do not have complete communicative competence in the target language.

Sobre o pensamento bakhtiniano: uma recepção de recepções

There are several receptions of the Bakhtinian work: those which situate it in a cultural and historical perspective, making it possible to understand the context inherent to it, the interchanges with which it was instituted and its development paths; those which separately take one or other of its ideas, and those which search to infer a less or more systemized framework from it in order to consider a specific object. When we concentrate on those last ones and on the field of studies about language, we examine the receptions of the Bakhtinian thought as a pragmatics, a sociolinguistics, a semiotics, a social theory, a theory of the discourse. The perspective of this branch of instruction is the one on which we lastly focus in order to reflect upon some of its fundamental basis.

Brasil, Moçambique e Angola: desvendando relações sociolinguísticas pelo prisma das formas de tratamento

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

A variação e o preconceito linguístico na escola à luz sociolinguística e dos PCNs

Nowadays questions involving the use of social and cult language approach at the school has produced discussions between teachers, thus the use of the linguistics registers different of that considered correct aren’t accept or analyzed in the context of the classroom, although the national curriculum framework recommend it. So, there are many difficulties of socialization by the students principally that ones who come from the surrounding regions, if they use the linguistics approach differently of the accepted as a model. The objective of this paper is to analyze those questions, involving variation and prejudice in the classroom context, from the Sociolinguistics point of view how this science has been applied in the classroom context, considering the curriculum proposals of 1992 and the national curriculum .

Contribuição de práticas argumentativas para a democratização de debates científicos em aulas de Física

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

O paulistano no mapa sociolinguístico brasileiro

Este artigo traz notícia acerca dos trabalhos que vêm sendo desenvolvidos pelo Grupo de Estudos e Pesquisa em Sociolinguística da USP (GESOL-USP). Com o intuito de tornar a cidade de São Paulo e o paulistano mais presentes no mapa da sociolinguística brasileira, esses trabalhos organizam-se, sobretudo, em torno da construção de uma nova amostra da fala paulistana, que permita responder às seguintes perguntas centrais: "o que significa falar como paulistano?" e "quais são as variáveis e variantes linguísticas que o identificam?". Essa nova amostra (SP2010) será disponibilizada (áudio e transcrições) para acesso público e para fins de pesquisa em página própria na Internet. Além de discutir os critérios que definem a construção de tal amostra, bem como os desafios nela envolvidos, esse artigo também faz um panorama dos trabalhos que se têm desenvolvido a partir dos dados que foram coletados durante a fase de preparação e de treinamento de jovens pesquisadores que nela trabalhariam (Amostra SP-Piloto). Finalmente, também delineia caminhos para trabalhos futuros dentro da agenda de pesquisa do grupo.

Druze linguistic landscape in Israel: indexicality of new ethnolinguistic identity boundaries

The Druze community in Israel is a distinct religious community currently undergoing important ethnolinguistic shifts. The government's implementation of an official policy has led to the deconstruction and reshaping of the Druze political and national identity to one that differs substantially from that of the Palestinian minority in Israel. In this study, I argue that the visibility, vitality and appreciation of Hebrew in the Druze linguistic landscape are indicative of new ethnolinguistic boundaries of the Druze identity in Israel. The fact that the Druze in Israel are dispersed throughout the Galilee and Mount Carmel area and experience varying levels of language contact as well as divergent economic relations with their Palestinian–Israeli and Jewish–Israeli neighbors suggests that one cannot expect uniformity in the Druze linguistic markets or the processes of social, cultural and linguistic identification. This study will show that Hebrew has become a dominant component of the linguistic repertoire and social identity of the Druze in the Mount Carmel area since it has become the first choice of communication as the linguistic landscape indicates.

A synchronic lexical study of the Ede language continuum of West Africa: The effects of different similarity judgment criteria

In the context of a synchronic lexical study of the Ede varieties of West Africa, this paper investigates whether the use of different criteria sets to judge the similarity of lexical features in different language varieties yields matching conclusions regarding the relative relationships and clustering of the investigated varieties and thus leads to similar recommendations for further sociolinguistic research. Word lists elicited in 28 Ede varieties were analyzed with the inspection method. To explore the effects of different similarity judgment criteria, two different similarity judgment criteria sets were applied to the elicited data to identify similar lexical items. The quantification of these similarity decisions led to the computation of two similarity matrices which were subsequently analyzed by means of correlation analysis and multidimensional scaling. The findings of this analysis suggest compatible conclusions regarding the relative relationships and clustering of the investigated Ede varieties. However, the matching clustering results do not necessarily lead to the same recommendations for more in-depth sociolinguistic research, when interpreted in terms of an absolute lexical similarity threshold. The indicated ambiguities suggest the usefulness of focusing on the relative, rather than absolute in establishing recommendations for further sociolinguistic research.

Language attitudes and language shift among ethnic migrants in Khartoum

This paper investigates language attitudes among ethnic migrant groups in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan. A questionnaire was used to collect data on language preference, language parents prefer their children to learn, and reasons for language preference. Results suggest that while positive attitude played a significant role in learning Arabic among some of the groups under investigation, it proved to be of no help in maintaining the groups’ ethnic languages. Arabic was reported as very important for education, religious activities, economic privileges and social interaction. Ethnic languages, on the other hand, were preferred for purely symbolic reasons (symbolizing groups’ ethnic identity).

Analyzing online communication from a social network point of view: questions, problems, perspectives

This programmatic paper investigates the possibilities, chances, and risks of analyzing personal and professional online communication from the point of view of interactional sociolinguistics combined with modern social network analysis (SNA). Thus, it has two complementing goals: One is the exploration of adequate, innovative concepts and methods for analyzing online communication, the other is to use online communication and its ontological and functional specificities to enrich the conceptual and methodological background of SNA. The paper is organized in two parts. It begins with an introduction to recent developments in sociolinguistic social network analysis. Here, three interesting new concepts and tools are discussed: latent versus emergent networks (Watts 1991), coalitions (Fitzmaurice 2000a, Fitzmaurice 2000b), and communities of practice (Wenger 1998

Christina Higgins. 2009. English as a Local Language

Christina Higgins credibly presents the situation of English in East Africa as scrutinized from four areas, which she investigated in the field: the newspaper journalism, annual beauty pageants for young women, the hip hop music of the youth, and advertisements. For me, as a Tanzanian, it has been a pleasure to review a book that illuminatingly documents the language situation, the cultural conceptualization and the localization of English that is taking place in the multilingual society in Tanzania.