A GRAFIA EM PLACAS E LETREIROS: UMA DESCRIÇÃO DE PORTUGUÊS POPULAR ESCRITO CONTEMPORÂNEO

Abstract

As far as textual production is concerned, this piece of research aims at describing the deviants as determinants of linguistic changes. Such deviants found in signs and notices (i.e. the conductive means of the collected messages), are exposed in public places in Campina Grande (PB). The main objective of this work is thus to identify, from the occurrences of these deviants, the possibilities to change the Brazilian spelling rules which may come to happen in the medium and/or long term. To carry out our research, we have based the study on two main theoretical moments: the first, a diachronic study from the 8th to the 10th century, divided in to six volumes HAUL, PAIVA, SPINA, MOREL PINTO, MARTINS and PIMENTEL PINTO entitled História da Língua Portuguesa. The second, a synchronic study, had two of PIMENTEL PINTO s works as a starting point: A língua escrita no Brasil (1986) and O português popular escrito (1990) and BAGNO s Preconceito lingüístico (1999). After detecting, selecting and categorizing the deviants (345 occurrences), we started the analysis, which we divided into two parts: the dismemberment of the diacritcs and the examination of the orthographic evidences in these changes. The analysis being concluded, a quantitative survey of the collected deviants was made in order to observe the incidence of these occurrences. The results so far seem to lead to a brief phonetic accommodation in the Brazilian Portuguese which will gradually abolish the general diacritic marks. As to spelling evidences, they are based on the metaplams of addition, subtraction, assimilation, and exchange. The latter is the most frequent case, which highlights the substitution of the grapheme s for the grapheme z , when it comes between two vowels. The results still show the frequent use of anglicism, or of its presence through the graphemes k and y . Thus, the analysis concludes that by being the act of writing signs and notices an uncommon situation to the ordinary man, it is this very fact that may justify the spontaneous occurrence of the deviant, stimulating linguistic changes which are considered non-acceptable at first but are accepted by the standard variant after a certain period of time.