Análise da alternância de pronomes tu/você/cê no falar de Porto Nacional (TO) à luz da sociolinguística cognitiva

Abstract

In this research, we described and analyzed the alternation of the tu, você e cê pronouns in the urban community speech, in the city of Porto Nacional – Tocantins, a town that is located in the central region of the state, 62 km away from the capital, Palmas, in the north of Brasil. We formed the hypothesis that the same speaker utilizes two or more variants in his/her discourse and those alternations are not done at random but they are conditioned by linguistic, social and cognitive factors. In order to comprehend the alternation process of those interchanges and, above all, the perception that the speakers themselves have of the alternations, we sought subsidies in the new theoretical-methodological bias proposed by the cognitive sociolinguistics. It recommends experiential nature of the meaning to be extensively studied, as the linguistic choices that the speakers use in their discourse are determined by different factors: lexical choices of specific concepts determined by the socio-discursive situation and other lexical distinctions that do not address the difference of concepts but the sociolinguistic, stylistic or pragmatic differences (SOARES DA SILVA, 2009). From the communication with variationist sociolinguistics (LABOV, 1972 [2008]), the cognitive sociolinguistics (MORENO FERNANDEZ, 2012) and (SOARES DA SILVA, 2009), discoursive pragmatics (VAN DIJK, 2012) and the cognitive semantics (SOARES DA SILVA, 2009), the alternation of the second person singular in Porto Nacional speech community was analyzed. To compose the sample, there were selected 36 speakers, stratified in the age range of eighteen (18) to thirty-five (35) years old, from thirty-six (36) to fifty-five (55) years old and over fiftyfive (55) years old. In relation to the level of education, we selected speakers from the Basic education (complete and incomplete), High school and Undergratuate Courses. In regard to gender: feminine and masculine. To undertake the quantitative analyzes of the data we used the computational program GOLDVARB X. In the course of the analysis, there were described the linguistic, social and cognitive contexts that affect, in a correlated manner, the linguistic behavior of the Porto speakers in terms of the alternation of the second person singular. The results of this research indicate that the Porto speakers alternate the forms você and cê more frequently (those forms are more prototypical) than the pronoun tu (more peripheral form), that appeared in a lower ratio in that community speech. The variants você and cê presented distinct linguistic behavior, there were contexts that favored the occurrence of the você pronoun and in some other variable contexts the episode of the reduced form cê revealed to be more significant, conditioned by linguistic, social and cognitive factors. The variant cê presented itself as the more appellant in that community speech. Considering the results about the perception that the speakers have of the linguistic variation, we noticed that there were specific contexts that determined the perception process and the variant selection. One of them was the schooling level because only through education and the progressive contact with the speakers of diverse origins the speaker acquires the consciousness and the knowledge about the language variety, as well as its variants and variables (MORENO FERNÁNDEZ, 2012). We could realize in this study the cognitive process that is involved in the variation, thus highlighting the ability of observing, analyzing and interpreting the communicative scenario that each individual disposes. The cognitive process involved in the variation features the specificity with which each individual perceives the communicative environs, making it possible for him/her to become aware of his/her individuality and standpoint as discursive process agent, being able to elect one form or another, depending on the adequate sociolinguistic conditions.