A Sociolinguistic Study of Postvocalic /S/ Variation in a Rio De Janeiro Favela: Race/Color, Place and Stance
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A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF POSTVOCALIC /S/ VARIATION IN A RIO DE JANEIRO FAVELA: RACE/COLOR, PLACE AND STANCE A Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Georgetown University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy In Linguistics By Edvan P. Brito, M.A. Washington, DC Washington,May 24, 2016 DC Month Day, Year CopyrightCopyright 2016 Year by Edvan Edvan P. P. BritoBrito AllAll Rights Rights Reserved Reserved ii Acknowledgements First of all, I would like to thank my committee for encouraging and supporting me in every step of the way. Their advice, questions, and comments were fundamental to the development of the ideas I explored in this dissertation. Special thanks to my dissertation advisor, Professor Natalie Schilling, for sharing her knowledge with me and for keeping me on track, especially when managing two full-time jobs was sometimes very difficult to handle. I also would like to acknowledge the valuable contribution of Professor Heidi Hamilton, who also mentored me during the development of the proposal for this dissertation research. I am also grateful to the professors and colleagues of the Department of Linguistics at Georgetown University, from whom I learned a lot and with whom I shared many enjoyable experiences during this five-year program. Thanks also to the administrative staff of the Department for doing their work so well and for their constant support and kindness. This dissertation would not be possible without the love, encouragement, and support I have always received from my family and friends who live in the Brazilian states of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, and Bahia and in Washington, DC. Special thanks to André de Oliveira, Amelia Tseng, Alan de Loiola Alves, Ana Luiza Flauzina, Ana Paula Flauzino, Cristiane Paiva, Daniele Rosário, Eduardo Pereira, Elaine Elizabeth, Emari de Jesus, Maria Amélia Vilanova, Melissa Costa, Michelle Valadão, Richard Wright, Robson Salgado, Rosangela Augusto, and Wilma Medeiros. Knowing that I could always count on each of you made me feel confident and hopeful. Because of you in my life, I am a happier and stronger person. I would like to express my gratitude to the residents of City of God for receiving me as one of their own. I hope this work pays tribute to the enduring struggles many individuals and iii community organizations have faced to bring growth, development, and dignity to the entire community. Last but not least, I would like to thank my mother Ernestina P. Brito and my father Evilásio P. Brito (in memoriam), who have always been my source of inspiration and who have taught me a lot with their example of hard work and simplicity. I also want to thank my American family, Anthony Barnum and Avil Snow, for their continuous love, support, and companionship. My sincere thanks, Edvan P. Brito iv For Mãe and Pai v A SOCIOLINGUISTIC STUDY OF POSTVOCALIC /S/ VARIATION IN A RIO DE JANEIRO FAVELA: RACE/COLOR, PLACE AND STANCE Edvan P. Brito, M.A. DissertationThesis Advisor: Advisor: Natalie Natalie Schilling Schilling,, Ph.D. Ph.D. ABSTRACT This dissertation research investigates the relationship between language and identity in the neighborhood of City of God (Cidade de Deus) in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. More specifically, it employs a mixed-methods approach to analyze the interrelationship between sociolinguistic variation in postvocalic /s/, a phonological variable, and identity construction across groups of speakers and within the speech of individual speakers. Thus, this research analyzes quantitatively the relationship among the four variants of the dependent variable (palatal, alveolar, glottal, and /s/ deletion) and twelve independent variables or predictors, of which six are linguistic (preceding vowel, following sound, stress, syllabic structure, grammatical category, and word) and six are social (age, gender, race/color, regional origin, education, speaker), in a data set composed of seventeen sociolinguistic interviews with twenty-two residents of City of God. Additionally, it examines qualitatively how the social meanings indexed by the use of this variable relate to the stances taken by individual speakers in conversation about the status of their community within the residential organization of Rio de Janeiro, focusing on different conceptions of the words comunidade ‘community’ and favela (roughly, slum or shantytown). The quantitative results showed that the palatal variant is significantly affected by speakers’ regional origin, age, and education. The alveolar is significantly affected by the origin and age of the speaker. The glottal is significantly affected by both age and race/color. Finally, vi all social variables, except race/color, significantly affect /s/ deletion. The qualitative analysis revealed that the meanings of the variants of postvocalic /s/ varied based on speakers’ orientations toward the neighborhood and the stances they took in relation to different perceptions regarding the words comunidade ‘community’ and favela. This study contributes to the field of sociolinguistics by using a mixed-methods approach to provide the first study to date that examines how postvocalic /s/ is used by residents of a community that is defined as a favela in Rio de Janeiro, and by including socio-cultural aspects such as race/color and regional origin which have not yet been addressed in studies of this feature in Brazilian Portuguese. vii Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction and background ........................................................................................ 1 1.1 Portuguese language .............................................................................................................. 3 1.2 Brazilian Portuguese .............................................................................................................. 5 1.3 The Carioca dialect, Rio de Janeiro, and the sociolinguistic variable of postvocalic /s/ .... 15 1.3.1 Previous studies on postvocalic /s/ in Rio de Janeiro Portuguese ................................ 24 1.3.2 Hypotheses on the origin and evolution of /s/ palatalization in Rio de Janeiro Portuguese .............................................................................................................................. 25 1.3.3 Variationist studies of postvocalic /s/ in the Carioca dialect ........................................ 28 1.4 Favela and asphalt ............................................................................................................... 37 1.4.1 Race/color ..................................................................................................................... 47 1.4.2 Regional origin .............................................................................................................. 50 1.5 City of God .......................................................................................................................... 52 1.6 Motivations for the study ..................................................................................................... 59 1.7 Research questions .............................................................................................................. 62 1.8 Organization of the dissertation ........................................................................................... 64 Chapter 2. Theoretical framework of the study ............................................................................ 66 2. 1 Third wave or speaker design models ................................................................................ 66 2.2 Indexicality and stance ........................................................................................................ 72 2.3 Previous studies on the intersection of stylistic variation, indexicality and stance ............. 77 Chapter 3. Data and methods ........................................................................................................ 81 viii 3.1 The community and my role as a sociolinguist ................................................................... 81 3.2 Data collection ..................................................................................................................... 86 3.3 The speakers ........................................................................................................................ 87 3.4 Coding methods for postvocalic /s/ ..................................................................................... 91 3.5 Procedures for the quantitative analysis .............................................................................. 97 3.6 Procedures for the qualitative analysis .............................................................................. 100 3.7 Chapter summary ............................................................................................................... 100 Chapter 4. Linguistic and social conditioning of postvocalic /s/ in City of God ........................ 102 4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................... 102 4.2 Results ............................................................................................................................... 104 4.2.1 Conditioning factors of /s/ palatalization .................................................................... 106 4.2.2 Conditioning factors for /s/ as alveolar .....................................................................