Análise do processo de acomodação linguística por falantes recifenses e paulistas em João Pessoa: um estudo longitudinal

Abstract

This thesis investigates the phenomenon of language accommodation in the context of dialectal contact with the local dialect of João Pessoa, experienced by speakers from Recife and São Paulo residing in that city. The study is grounded in the theoretical framework of Communication Accommodation Theory (Giles et al., 1991) and the principles of Variationist Sociolinguistics (Labov, 1966, 2008 [1972]). The general objective is to understand how the process of language accommodation develops over time, considering both linguistic and extralinguistic variables, with special attention to speakers’ language attitudes and identity. The corpus consists of seven participants (three from Recife and four from São Paulo), whose speech were recorded in six different moments over a two-year period, granting the study a longitudinal character that has not yet been explored in studies on dialectal accommodation in Brazil. The analysis combines a quantitative approach, using the Goldvarb X software (Sankoff, Tagliamonte & Smith, 2005), with qualitative intra- and interindividual analysis focused on the participants’ accommodation trajectories. The results show that language accommodation is not a linear process. Factors such as length of exposure, attitudes that regulate sociolinguistic judgments, and identity positions modulate both the degree and pace of evolution of the language accommodation process. This thesis thus contributes to the deepening of discussions on language accommodation, identity, and language attitudes in the context of dialectal contact between varieties of Brazilian Portuguese.