The use of third person accusative pronouns in spoken Brazilian Portuguese: an analysis of different TV genres

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Date
2015
Authors
Stocco Garcia, Flavia
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Abstract

This thesis presents an analysis of third person accusative pronouns in Brazilian Portuguese. With the aim to analyze the variation between the use of standard (prescribed by normative grammar) and non-standard pronouns found in oral language, I gathered data from three kinds of TV show (news, non-scripted and soap-opera) in order to determine which form of pronoun is more common and if there is any linguistic and/or sociolinguistic factors that will influence on their usage. Based on data collected, I demonstrate that non-standard forms are favored in general and that the rules prescribed by normative grammar involving standard forms are only followed in specific contexts. Among all the variables considered for the analysis, the ones that showed to be significant were the kind of show, the context of the utterance, the socio-economic status of the speaker and verbs in the infinitive. Considering my results, I provide a discussion regarding to which extent the distribution of the 3rd-person pronouns on TV reflect their use by Brazilians and a brief discussion of other issues related to my findings conclude this work.

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Keywords
Brazilian Portuguese, Accusative pronouns, Clitics, Sociolinguistics, Standard vs. Non standard language
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