TU, VOCÊ, OCÊ AND CÊ IN THE QUILOMBOLA COMMUNITY SERRA DAS VIÚVAS/ÁGUA BRANCA-AL
Sociolinguistics; Variation; “Tu”, “você” and “cê”; Serra das Viúvas quilombola; community.
This research seeks to outline the sociolinguistic profile of speakers from the quilombola community Serra das Viúvas/Água Branca-AL in relation to the variation of tu, você, ocê and in the subject position in quilombola speech, with the aim of verifying the frequency of use of variants that represent the second person singular. This study also aims to observe whether there is interference from social and linguistic factors in the variation; verify whether the relationship between interlocutors influences linguistic choice; and check whether the data collection methodology interferes with capturing the variants tu, você, ocê and cê. To develop this research, we used the theoretical and methodological assumptions of the Theory of Linguistic Variation and Change (Labov, 2008[1972]), which deals with the variable uses of language and works with the conception of heterogeneous language, assuming that the language is not static, but variable, influenced by linguistic and social factors. We also use the Theory of Power and Solidarity (Brown; Gilman (2003 [1960]), which deals with the use of treatment pronouns, postulating two characteristics that exist in societies, power and solidarity, and the form of treatment used by the speaker is determined by the relationship between the interlocutors in a given communicative situation. We use (Faraco 2017 [1996]) and (Lopes; Duarte 2003) to explain the process of linguistic change faced by the pronoun vossa mercê to the personal pronoun você. To understand the variant linguistic behavior of tu with agreement, tu without agreement, você, ocê and cê in Brazil, we resorted to the sociolinguistic mapping carried out (Scherre et al. 2015) and (Scherre; Andrade; Catão 2020-2021). In this work, we used two samples from the same speech community, one collected in 2016 with the traditional Variationist Sociolinguistics collection methodology and the other collected in 2022 with a dialogue collection methodology between two informants. To obtain the results, we used the computer program GoldVarb X (Sankoff; Tagliamonte; Smith, 2005). In our study, we first analyzed a sample collected in 2022, we carried out three rounds to better investigate the variation. Thus, after delimiting the dependent variable tu, vocêand cê, we delimited the independent variables for research, namely, age group, sex/gender, education, type of relationship between speakers, relationships between sexes, relationships between groups age pronominal parallelism and determination of the referent. According to the results, the variant most used by quilombolas is você, but there is also the use of the variant tu without agreement and cê. We did a round that included the variants tu and você, in which we found that the conditioning variables for the alternation were education, type of relationship between speakers, sex/gender, pronominal parallelism and relationships between age groups. In the round that analyzed você and cê, only the variable type of relationship between speakers was considered statistically significant for the variation. In the analysis of the second sample, the variations tested were sex/gender, age group, pronominal parallelism and determination of the referent. According to the results, there were few losses of the variants tu, você and cê, however, the occurrences of você are more frequent than tu and cê, in this analysis no variable was considered statistically significant. Finally, we carried out an analysis of the collection methodologies, interviews between documents and informants and dialogue between two informants, and confirmed that the appropriate model for capturing second-person singular variants is the dialogical interview model between two informants.