Percepção e avaliação social de variantes: estudo das percepções sociolinguísticas de estudantes universitários

Abstract

This research aimed to analyze the perceptions, judgments, and evaluations of 38 university students from UTFPR – Pato Branco campus regarding sociolinguistic variants. The study sought to observe the social characteristics of speakers attributed by listeners based on different linguistic usages, as well as the linguistic variants identified in speech. To achieve this, the students were exposed to brief audio excerpts, approximately 2 minutes in length, selected from sociolinguistic interviews with speakers from the communities of Dois Vizinhos, Pato Branco, and Francisco Beltrão, located in the interior of Paraná. The participants were invited to complete a questionnaire via Google Forms, where they responded to questions related to their perception of the speaker’s characteristics, variable processes, and social evaluation of speech, based on the principles of Sociolinguistics (Weinreich, Labov, Herzog, 2006; Labov, 2008; Tarallo, 1997; Bortoni-Ricardo, 2017; Bagno, 2007; Mollica, Braga, 2007) and studies involving linguistic beliefs and attitudes (Curioletti, 2021; Melo, Gomes, 2019; Hora; Henrique; Amorim, 2018; Mendonça; Borges, 2019; Nascimento, 2017; Freitag; Santos, 2016; Aguilera; Silva, 2014; Corbari; Sella, 2016; Botassini, 2009). For this study, excerpts featuring the use of certain variable processes prevalent in the region and carrying social stigma were selected, such as rotacism, the substitution of the strong ‘r’ with a flap ‘r’ in syllable-initial position, and the vocalization of “lh”. Data analysis revealed the informants' ability to recognize the social characteristics of speakers and also a tendency to associate speakers with the use of phenomena like rotacism, vocalization of “lh”, and r-flap with attributes such as low educational attainment, older age, rural origin, and lower and middle social classes. Conversely, speakers who did not use these phenomena were associated with attributes such as youth, higher education, middle and upper classes, and urban origin. In terms of likability, speakers who did not use these phenomena were rated more positively. Perception data also revealed the listeners’ ability to recognize sociolinguistic variants, identifying characteristics in speech such as disagreement and different pronunciations.