A variação de ‘Tu’ e ‘Você’ no português falado e escrito em Lontra - MG

Abstract

The main thesis of this dissertation is the unusual use of pronouns “tu” and “você”, a linguistic phenomenon occurring in the written and spoken Portuguese by the community of Lontra city, North of Minas Gerais state represented by the subjects of this research, the students of the 8th year of the elementary state school Guimarães Rosa. Its objective was to investigate, in various interlocutions, the alternating use of ´tu´ and você´ detected in the oral and written languages of those students, as well as the negative beliefs and attitudes resulting from such variations. Research was oriented by theories such as the Labovian Sociolinguistics, Dialectology, Linguistic Geography, Educational Sociolinguistics and by the postulates of theories on Beliefs and Attitudes. The following hypotheses were raised: a) the linguistic phenomenon in Lontra city is a case of linguistic variation, and linguistic and extralinguistic factors may be influencing such alternations; b) updating teaching practices based upon linguistic education theories will lead students to learn prestige pattern linguistic norms and expand their lexicon. As to methodology, in what concerns the problemapproach, researcher used the Labovian approach; as to technical procedures the researchaction was used. Results revealed the occurrence of variation in the use of pronouns ´tu´ and ´você in dispute and in its variants 'ocê' and 'cê' both in the oral and written modalities; evidenced the influence of structural and nonstructural factors in the use of the pronouns in question and the existence of mistaken beliefs and attitudes that create linguistic prejudice mainly in relation to the use of the variant ´tu´, in which the level of intimacy reveals closeness among people who know each other. Results still showed the interference of orality in the use of ‘tu’ and ‘você’ in the students´ writing. Based upon such results, a teaching proposal was elaborated and implemented aiming at promoting linguistic education and the effective learning of the standard language through the teaching of pronouns ‘tu’ and ‘você’ according to BP (PB)´s standard verb agreement rules.