A heterogeneidade da língua crioula guineense contemporânea: fonologia e variação num contexto de contato etnolinguístico

Abstract

This work is based in the study of Linguistic Contact, in which creole languages are inserted, and in the field of Sociolinguistics studies. In general, the work consists of a sociolinguistic variationist analysis of the phenomenon of vowel epenthesis with syllables of CCV mold in the Guinean Creole spoken by the Fula (Region of Bafata) and Balanta (Region of Quinara) ethnic groups. The analysis presented in this work was based on the analysis of 24 interviews that are part of a corpus formed through fieldwork carried out in Guinea-Bissau with participants from the Fula ethnic group, in the Bafatá region, and from the Balanta ethnic group, in the Quinara region. The discussion of the results is based in this authors Bakker (1994), Bickerton (1984), Bisol (2001), Cagliari (1998), Calvet (2007), Degraff (2007), Good (2012), Holm (2000), Kihm (1994), Labov (1972 [2008]), Mcwhorter (2010), Mufwene (2007). For the statistical analysis of the linguistic variable studied, we used the GOLDVARB X program. Following what Variationist Sociolinguistics recommends, we initially thought of data analysis considering as hypotheses that the phenomenon of epenthesis can be influenced by independent linguistic variables (word length, position in syllable in which the phenomenon occurs, Stress of the syllable in which the phenomenon occurred, Type of epenthesis vowel inserted, Class of the word) and by extralinguistic variables (Education, Gender, Ethnic group and Type of data source). Thus, the main purpose of this analysis was to verify in which ethnic group the epenthesis vowel occurs more often and which are the main motivators. In addition to the epenthesis analysis, a survey of the phonological inventory of Guinean Creole was carried out based on our observations in comparison with the works of Costa (2014) and Chapouto (2014). We also outlined an analysis of the metalinguistic evaluation that the groups made of themselves through the application of their own instrument during the collection of interviews. Of the total of 1224 analyzed data, the epenthesis accounts for more than 88.2% of the sample data (1080) among the Fula. The analysis showed that, in this ethnic group, epenthesis is preferred by women. For the Balanta group, epenthesis can be considered rare, since it occurred in a percentage of 3.6%. The data lead us to conclude that these percentages are mainly due to the contact between the Guinean language and the Fula and Balanta languages, which have different syllabic patterns, as demonstrated in the work.