Beliefs and attitudes of the speech of the other

Linguistic perceptions of university informants about the speech of Baixada Cuiabana

Abstract

In the socio-linguistic scenario of Mato Grosso state, the discussion about linguistic diversity opens space for research on linguistic varieties and the speech of the other. In order to contribute to such studies, this work aims to investigate the beliefs and attitudes of university informants from Juara city about the socio-cultural values of the Baixada Cuiabana speech community, having as a theoretical phenomenon the alternation of fricatives and affricates. So that, this study follows the theoretical perspective of the third wave Variationist Sociolinguistics. The hypothesis raised is that the university informants would evaluate the Baixada Cuiabana speech community as a stigmatized linguistic variation. It was done a qualitative research, using the semantic differential perception test method, known as matched guise, by Lambert and Lambert (1972). The corpus was constituted of twelve university informants born in Juara city, in the Mato Grosso state, linked to the State University of Mato Grosso (UNEMAT). The semantic differential perception test adapted from the matched guise technique, made it possible to analyze the linguistic perceptions of the university informants from Juara, which resulted in the confirmation of the hypothesis raised: university informants would evaluate the Baixada Cuiabana speech community as a stigmatized linguistic variation.