O alçamento das vogais médias átonas finais: uma interface entre aquisição da linguagem e variação linguística

• Ano de defesa: 2015
• Autor(a) principal: Souza, Susana Silva de
• Orientador(a): Brescancini, Cláudia Regina
• Tipo de documento: Tese
• Tipo de acesso: Acesso aberto
• Idioma: por
• Instituição de defesa: Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul; Porto Alegre
• Palavras-chave em Português: AQUISIÇÃO DA LINGUAGEM; VARIAÇÃO (LINGUÍSTICA); PORTUGUÊS - VOGAIS; LINGUÍSTICA
• Link de acesso: http://hdl.handle.net/10923/7760

The present study investigates, in the light of Labov’s Variation Theory (1972, 2001), the raising of the mid vowels in unstressed final position in the speech of children between the ages of 1:3 and 12 and of their adult caregivers, all residents in the cities of Pelotas, Porto Alegre and Vista Alegre do Prata in the State of Rio Grande do Sul. The inicial six-month longitudinal study of the acquisition of the tonic and final post-tonic vowel system of 8 children (5 boys and 3 girls), aged between 1:3 and 2:0, indicated that the seven stressed vowels are already acquired from the age of 1:7. As for the final post-tonic system, the results revealed the presence of the vowels [i, e, o, u] in the data of Vista Alegre do Prata and the vowels [i, u] in Porto Alegre/Pelotas from the age of 1:7. The investigation of the raising process of final unstressed mid-vowels in the speech of 44 children, aged between 1:7 and 12 from Vista Alegre do Prata, revealed the conditioning role of the variables Preceding Context, Following Context, Age Group and Sex for both the coronal and the labial vowel. In the sample of adults from Vista Alegre do Prata, the statistical results for both vowels indicated the conditioning role of the variables Preceding Context and Syllable Type. The results obtained for the sample of children from Pelotas/Porto Alegre pointed out that the production of high vowels is almost categorical. A comparison between the results obtained for the children and their caregivers indicated a correlation with respect to the preferred variant in unstressed final position, thereby confirming the essential role of the input in the emergence of sociolinguistic variation in child language acquisition.