Crenças Linguísticas de descendentes de pomeranos em três localidades paranaenses

Abstract

This thesis presents the linguistic beliefs and attitudes of Pomeranian descendants from three cities in the state of Paraná: Cidade Gaúcha, Marechal Cândido Rondon and Nova Santa Rosa. These localities present an interdependent and heterogeneous sociolinguistic picture, due to the presence of migrants of different ethnic groups. It was sought to inquire the linguistic beliefs and attitudes in this context of languages in contact of the descendants of Pomeran migrants who came to Paraná from Rio Grande do Sul in 1950, with a peculiar historical and linguistic reality preserved in Brazil. The Pomeranian immigrant is of Germanic origin, lived in the Baltic Sea region, north of the present Germany country and part of Poland country. At the time of immigration (1851), Pomerani was a province of Prussia, so the immigration of this people predates the formation of the German Empire (1871). In 1945, after World War II, Pomerania was extinguished; this territory was located between Germany and Poland. This research is based on Pluridimensional Dialectology (THUN, 2005; 2009), Sociolinguistics (CALVET, 2002; LABOV, 2008) and Social Psychology (LAMBERT and LAMBERT, 1975; BEM, 1973; LÓPEZ MORALES, 1989). This research based on the assumption that language and ethnic identity are related, and therefore, the Pomeranian respondents’ beliefs and attitudes reflect their condition in relation to the ethnic group itself. The corpus was collected with the application of an interview to eight Pomeranian informants from each locality, selected according to the following variables: a) two generations: generation I from to 25 to 50 years and generation II from 55 years; b) of both sexes, two women and two men of each generation. Semi structured interview based on sociolinguistic and dialectological research, adapted to the sociolinguistic and cultural reality of the interviewed Pomeranians. There are specific questions to assess the informants’ beliefs and language attitudes regarding the Pomeranian linguistic identity. This analysis of the corpus welcomed the mentalist approach, which comprises the attitude as a behavioral action of positive or negative valuation; understanding that the highest valuation is the belief, because it contains the three components that are associated with the attitude. The cognitive, the affective and the conative. The results indicate, in general, positive attitudes and prestige in relation to their ethnic language. There were also a very small number of informants with manifestations of prejudice based on stereotyped, culturally socialized views. The localities present differences in the manifestations between one and anther, since each one presents geographical and socio-historical factors that interfere in the use or abandonment, even, of the Pomeranian language after almost two centuries of the immigration.