Pronominal variation “nós/a gente” in the speech of individuals from Northern Paraná: the role of extralinguistic factors

 It is common sense that variation is one of the characteristics of languages in general. Although there are categorical grammatical rules that cannot be violated by speakers, there are also variable rules, among which the variation of the first person plural stands out. Even though, normative gramm...

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Bibliographic Details
Authors: Bellanda Galuch, Laura, de Andrade Aguilera, Vanderci
Format: article
Status:Published version
Publication Date:2024
Country:Brasil
Institution:Universidade Estadual de Londrina (UEL)
Repository:Revista Entretextos
Language:Portuguese
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/49342
Online Access:https://ojs.uel.br/revistas/uel/index.php/entretextos/article/view/49342
Access Level:Open access
Keyword:primeira pessoa do plural
língua falada
sociolinguística variacionista
Description
Summary: It is common sense that variation is one of the characteristics of languages in general. Although there are categorical grammatical rules that cannot be violated by speakers, there are also variable rules, among which the variation of the first person plural stands out. Even though, normative grammars invariably present the same set of subject pronouns, this pronominal system no longer corresponds to the linguistic reality in Brazil, where there are two first-person plural pronouns: nós and a gente, both of which are frequently found in different regions of the country. With that in mind, this present work, based on the methodology of Variationist Sociolinguistics, aims to examine the pronominal variation of the first person plural in the speech of individuals from Northern Paraná. To do so, 15 interviews with Northern Paraná informants are analyzed to investigate how extralinguistic factors such as gender, age group, and level of education influence the realization of the linguistic phenomenon in question. After the analysis, it was observed that in Northern Paraná, there is a preference for a gente as the first person plural subject pronoun, regardless of the social factors analyzed.