The social evaluation of the “r” in syllabic coda

Abstract

This study presents one of the fundamental problems in the Sociolinguistics area, the social evaluation of language (WEINREICH; LABOV; HERZOG, 1968; LABOV, 1994a, 2008), focusing its analysis on a phenomenon of sound variation in Brazilian Portuguese – BP, the variation of “r” in syllable coda. Examples of words - in Portuguese - in which this phenomenon happens are: esporte, mercado, maior and melhor. Specifically, what is researched is the social evaluation of the glottal variant and the retroflex variant. The aim was to verify how speakers evaluate said “r” variants, considering that it is observed that the retroflex “r” is negatively evaluated in BP (BOTASSINI, 2009); RENNICKE, 2011). To execute this study, a text – constituted of words with “r” in coda, selected for the research – was recorded with two speakers (a man and a woman) of the retroflex “r”, from Lavras/MG, and two speakers (a man and a woman) of the glottal “r”, from Belo Horizonte/MG. Then, the audios were evaluated by a group of evaluators, composed of 4 speakers of the glottal variant (2 men and 2 women), born and raised in Belo Horizonte, and 4 speakers of the retroflex variant (2 men and 2 women), born and raised in Lavras. As parameters for evaluation, the characteristics status, ability, urbanity level and solidarity, as proposed by Rennicke (2011). The results of this study confirm the perception that the retroflex variant is socially stigmatized.