Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b95js Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-10T14:20:24.810Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ongoing change in post-independence São Tomé: The use of rhotics as a marker of national identity among young speakers of Santomean Portuguese

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 May 2019

Marie-Eve Bouchard
Marie-Eve Bouchard*
Affiliation:
Stockholm University
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper examines variation in the use of rhotics in Santomean Portuguese. In Portuguese, the distribution of rhotics is determined by syllable structure (Bonet & Mascaró, 1997). However, the emerging variety of Portuguese spoken in São Tomé and Príncipe diverges from the standard norm and shows great variability in its use of rhotics; specifically, Santomeans often use a strong-R in positions that require a weak-r in European and Brazilian Portuguese. Sociolinguistic interviews with 56 speakers from the capital of São Tomé and Príncipe and its surroundings provide 5287 data points for analysis. Based on the apparent-time construct (Bailey, 2004; Bailey et al., 1991), variation patterns show a language change in progress in the use of the strong-R, with younger speakers using it more frequently. Results also reveal the emergence of rhotic fricatives in the speech of Santomeans born after the independence of the country.

Type
Research Article
Information
Language Variation and Change , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , March 2019 , pp. 21 - 42
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

This research was supported by the SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship #767-2012-1785 and the MacCracken Fellowship (New York University). I am grateful to the Santomean speakers who shared their language and time with me.

References

REFERENCES

Afonso, Beatriz de Castro. (2008). A problemática do bilinguismo e ensino da língua portuguesa em São Tomé e Príncipe. Master's thesis, Universidade Nova de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Afonso, Helena Lima. (2009). Interferências linguísticas: Um contributo para o ensino da língua portuguesa em São Tomé e Príncipe. Master's thesis, Universidade de Lisboa.Google Scholar
Baayen, Harald. (2008). Analyzing Linguistic Data: A Practical Introduction to Statistics Using R. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Bailey, Guy. (2004). Real and apparent time. In Trudgill, Peter, Chambers, J.K., and Schilling-Estes, Natalie (eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 312–332.Google Scholar
Bailey, Guy, Wikle, Tom, Tillery, Jan, & Sand, Lori. (1991). The apparent time construct. Language Variation and Change 3:241–264.Google Scholar
Barbosa, Jorge Morais. (1983). Études de phonologie portuguaise. 2nd ed. Universidade de Évora, Portugal.Google Scholar
Bates, Douglas, Mächler, Martin, Bolker, Ben, & Walker, Steve (2015). Fitting linear mixed effects models using lme4. Journal of Statistical Software 67:1–48.Google Scholar
Becker, Kara. (2014). The social motivations of reversal: Raised BOUGHT in New York City English. Language in Society 43:395–420.Google Scholar
Bonet, Eulàlia, & Mascaró, Joan. (1997). On the representation of contrasting rhotics. In Martínez-Gil, F., & Morales-Front, A. (eds.), Issues in the Phonology and Morphology of the Major Iberian Languages. Washington D.C.: Georgetown University Press. 103–126.Google Scholar
Boersma, Paul, & Weenink, David. (2017). Praat: Doing phonetics by computer [Computer program]. Version 6.0.28. Retrieved from http://www.praat.org/. Accessed November 13, 2017.Google Scholar
Bouchard, Marie-Eve. (2017). Linguistic variation and change in the Portuguese of São Tomé. PhD dissertation, New York University.Google Scholar
Brandão, Silvia Figueiredo. (2016). A instabilidade dos róticos no português de São Tomé. Paper presented at the Encontro anual da Associação de Crioulos de Base Lexical Portuguesa e Espanhola, Praia, Cape Verde, June 23–25.Google Scholar
Callou, Dinah, Morães, João, & Leite, Yvonne. (1996). Variação e diferenciação dialetal: A pronúncia do /r/ no português do Brasil. In Gramática do português falado, vol. VI. Campinas: Editora da Unicamp.Google Scholar
Callou, Dinah, Morães, João, & Leite, Yvonne. (1998). Apagamento do R final no dialeto carioca: Um estudo em tempo aparente e em tempo real. DELTA. Retrieved from http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0102-44501998000300006. Accessed on November 13, 2017.Google Scholar
Cheshire, Jenny. (2004). Sex and gender in variationist research. In Trudgill, P., Chambers, J.K., & Schilling-Estes, N. (eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 423–443.Google Scholar
CIA World Factbook. (2017). São Tomé and Príncipe. Retrieved from https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/tp.html. Accessed on November 13, 2017.Google Scholar
Clements, George. (1990). The role of the sonority cycle in core syllabification. In Kingston, J., & Beckman, M., Papers in Laboratory Phonology I. Between the Grammar and Physics of Speech. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 283–333.Google Scholar
Coetsem, Frans van. (1988). Loan phonology and the two transfer types in language contact. Dordrecht: Foris.Google Scholar
Couto, Mia. (2014). As colonizações e a lingua portuguesa. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lK0aVJCRS7o. Accessed on November 13, 2017.Google Scholar
Ferraz, Luiz Ivens. (1979). The Creole of São Tomé. Johannesburg: Witwatersrand University Press.Google Scholar
Fought, Carmen. (2004). Ethnicity. In Trudgill, P., Chambers, J.K., & Schilling-Estes, N. (eds.), The Handbook of Language Variation and Change. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. 444–472.Google Scholar
Gonçalves, Rita. (2012). Mudança linguística e variação no português de São Tomé. Actas do Colóquio International São Tomé e Príncipe numa perspectiva interdisciplinar, diacrónica e sincrónica. Lisbon. 413–430.Google Scholar
Hagemeijer, Tjerk. (2009). As línguas de São Tomé e Príncipe. Revista de crioulos de base lexical portuguesa e espanhola 1:1–27.Google Scholar
Hagemeijer, Tjerk. (2018). From creoles to Portuguese: Language shift in São Tomé and Príncipe. In Álvarez López, L., Gonçalves, P., & Avela, J. (eds.), The Portuguese language continuum in Africa and Brazil. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 169–184.Google Scholar
Instituto Nacional de Estatística (INE). 2012. Características educacionais da população. IV Recenseamento geral da população e habitação. Retrieved from http://www.ine.st/Documentacao/Recenseamentos/2012/TemasRGPH2012/11CARACTERISTICAS%20EDUCACIONAIS%20%20DA%20POPULACAO%20Recenseamento%202012.pdf. Accessed on November 13, 2017.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1963). The social motivation of a sound change. Word 19:273–309.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1966). The social stratification of English in New York City. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1972). Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Labov, William. (1984). Field methods of the project on linguistic change and variation. In Baugh, J., & Sherzer, J. (eds.), Language in Use: Readings in Sociolinguistics. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. 28–53.Google Scholar
Lorenzino, Gerardo. (1996). Uma avaliação sociolinguística sobre São Tomé e Príncipe. In Duarte, I., & Leiria (Org.), I., Actas do Congresso Internacional sobre o Português. Lisbon: APL e Edições Colibri. 435–449.Google Scholar
Lucchesi, Dante, & Baxter, Alan. (2009). A transmissão linguística irregular. In Lucchesi, D., Baxter, A., & Ribeiro, I. (eds.), O português afro-brasileiro. Salvador: EDUFBA. 101–124.Google Scholar
Massini-Cagliari, Gladis, Cagliari, Luiz Carlos, & Redenbarger, Wayne J. (2016). A comparative study of the sounds of European and Brazilian Portuguese: Phonemes and allophones. In Wetzels, W. L., Costa, J., & Menuzzi, S. (eds.), The handbook of Portuguese linguistics. Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell. 56–68.Google Scholar
Mateus, Marie Helena Mira, & D'Andrade, Ernesto. (2000). The phonology of Portuguese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Mateus, Maria Helena Mira, & Rodrigues, Celeste. (2004). A vibrante coda no português europeu. In Freitas, Tiago, and Mendes (org.), Amália, Actas do XIX Encontro Nacional da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Lisbon. 289–299.Google Scholar
Oushiro, Livia. (2014). Identidade na pluralidade: Avaliação, produção e percepção linguística na cidade de São Paulo. PhD dissertation, Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil.Google Scholar
R Core Team. (2014). R: A language and environment for statistical computing. R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria. Retrieved from www.R-project.org. Accessed on September 14, 2017.Google Scholar
Rennicke, Iiris Emilia. (2015). Variation and Change in the Rhotics of Brazilian Portuguese. PhD dissertation, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.Google Scholar
Rennicke, Iiris, & Martins, Pedro Tiago. (2013). As realizações fonéticas de /R/ em português europeu: Análise de um corpus dialetal e implicações no sistemo fonológico. In Silva, F., Falé, I., & Pereira, I. (eds.), Textos Selecionados do XXVIII Encontro Nacioanl da Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. Lisbon. 509–523.Google Scholar
Seibert, Gerhard. (2006). Comrades, Clients and Cousins: Colonialism, Socialism and Democratization in São Tomé and Príncipe. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill.Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. (1981). The limits of awareness. Sociolinguistic Working Paper No. 84. Austin, TX: Southwest Educational Development Laboratory.Google Scholar
Spradley, James. (1979). The ethnographic interview. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.Google Scholar
Veloso, João. (2015). The English R coming! The never-ending story of Portuguese rhotics. In Simões, A., Barreiro, A., Santos, D., Sousa-Silva, R., & Tagnin, S. (eds.), Linguística, Informática e Tradução: Mundos que se Cruzam. Oslo Studies in Language. 323–336.Google Scholar