The diphthongization before /S/ in the Portuguese spoken by the Afro-Brazilian communities of Helvécia, Barra and Bananal
Diphthongization. Sociolinguistics. Afro-Brazilian communities.
The dissertation entitled Diphthongization before /S/ in the Portuguese spoken by the Afro-Brazilian communities of Helvécia, Barra and Bananal-Ba is based on the assumptions of Variationist Sociolinguistics (LABOV, 2008[1972]), and had as its main objective to observe howdiphthongization in front of /S/ occurs in the Afro-Brazilian communities of Helvécia, Barra and Bananal.In the current phase of the research, samples from the Helvécia community were analyzed, totaling 600 occurrences, extracted from the speech of 12 informants (06 men and 06 women), divided into three age groups (range I: from 20 to 40 years old; range II: from 40 to 60 years old; Group III: over 60 years old).The samples were collected by the Project Strands of Portuguese in the State of Bahia, from the Federal University of Bahia.The data were analyzed using the GOLDVARB X program and the results showed a high rate of diphthongization in the community, when compared to other studies on the subject.With regard to the influence of linguistic factors, the program pointed out Word length, syllable stress, phonetic realization of the consonant in syllabic coda, type of following consonant and morphological class of the word as the ones that most favored diphthongization.With regard to extralinguistic factors, none favored diphthongization.